Life is a Highway

I know I talk a lot about the struggle to balance motherhood with writing.  Mostly that's because writing about it helps me sort out what I'm thinking and feeling.  I can figuratively hold it out in front of my face and validate my internal banter.  Usually that banter feels like standing on a grass median between a 6-lane highway.  Writing settles me.

Motherhood, on the other hand, does not.

That sounds horribly negative.  But it's true.  Motherhood is smack in the middle of that highway.  It's a constant state of ebb and flow traffic, but there is always someone on the road.  Your engine must be well-fueled, your tires can't be worn down, your windshield better be clear.  There is always noise.  Often toxic fumes.  And road construction and unexpected detours are pretty much standard.

Most days, while navigating three schedules of homework, dances, sports, and god knows what else, I maintain composure.  I take deep breath, deal with each request, dole out pre-requisites, make the phone calls, handle the fall-out, break-up fights, deal with sensitive emotions, and so on.  There is no room for road rage. Just like the real highway, you can scream and cuss all you want, but the traffic isn't going to move until the accident is cleared.   But after, I'm left standing with my fists balled so tight I don't even realize my fingernails are digging into my skin.

Motherhood requires you to step outside yourself.  Leave your own wants and desires behind and deal with how to best serve someone else's.  This doesn't mean you give your children whatever they want.  In fact, the opposite is a true example of leaving your own wants behind.  Don't we all just want our kids to be happy?  Saying yes all the time would actually be easier.  I get tired of fighting with my young teens about iPhones.  The answer is "no".  (We can't afford them, plain and simple.)   Yes would make them happy, sure.  And it would make me happy to a certain degree as well.  But within a matter of weeks, what would the next carrot be?  There will always be something better, bigger, and shinier for them to want and beg and try to break you down to acquire.  This fight is exhausting.  And it's only ONE fight of many.

Writing is that grassy median.  It requires you to step inside yourself.  Leave everyone else's wants and desires at the door, shut it and dead bolt it, and focus entirely on your creative, albeit fictional, world.  This is hard work too, but it is often blissful.  You can control it.  You can say yes or no whenever the hell you feel like it, and then change your mind.  It's play.  It's magical.  Exploration of psychology and relationships and cause and effect and all without consequence, really, because you can just hit "delete".    

So on one hand, you're stepping out and on the other hand, you're stepping in.  It's like when the lights go out, and your eyes adjust only to have them flick back on and you're blinded once again. That was how I felt the past few days: in/out/in/out/in/out.   Pulled in so many directions--emotionally and physically.  I was home recovering from surgery, reveling in the opportunity to have the "excuse" to sit on the couch and write all day, as if writing was a guilty pleasure and not a career goal or calling, as it often feels.  No, it was a struggle because my youngest child was also home sick for four of these days.

Writing is not a normal job.  If I set aside a day to write and someone ends up home sick, I have to figure out how to blend the two.  If it was my day-job day, I'd just take off and be home.  But with my writing, I frequently have to squeeze it in between everything else.  Taking a day off is detrimental to the process unless I've arrived at a place in which I'm prepared to step back out.
Can you see the crescent-moon dents in my palm?

I have no answer to this quandary.  Clearly, I haven't arrived at the point where they blend seamlessly, where my two sides, my two worlds, understand each other.  Perhaps they won't until the children are grown and on their own adventures.  Until then, I remind myself that both are beautiful.  Both enrich my life and challenge me in ways I'd never expected when I first signed up.  I learn patience and unconditional love.  And both worlds have given me the appreciation for uniquely crafted voices: I quote my children in my work and my work to my children.

I can honestly say that I hope each of my kids someday have a struggle of their own.  One that makes them fight for what they believe is important for their lives.  The highway is enlightening.  The journey is the destination.  May I appreciate it more each day.

On Writing and Recovery

I am not a patient woman.  Some people think I am.  I have fooled them greatly.  My husband will vouch for this.  I can be quiet, but I am not patient.  This is not a good trait for a writer because writers must be patient.  They must be patient with their ideas, their characters, perhaps their agents and their publishers.  Most of all, writers have to be patient with themselves.

On Tuesday, I had minor surgery.  This was the second time in less than 6 months I've gone under the knife and had to have quite a bit of bed/couch rest to recover.  The first surgery was in January, so I didn't mind that I was stuck inside--I hate January.  I am not patient with winter.  But this time around, during the first week of solid 70 degree days, I'm stuck on my ass in my dirty house and unable to do anything because I can hardly walk.  Except write.

I'd already finished my packet requirement for school, which is 40 pages of new novel draft.  But even though I'm technically done with my school work, I can't stop writing.  This book must be finished.  I'm not taking a month off and risking the loss of my mo-jo.  But there I sat, at page 80 or so and I drew a blank.  My story is loosely outlined, so I knew what was next, but I couldn't write it out.  I didn't know why.  Over the next two days, those 20 pages haunted me.  From 80 to 100, it was excruciating.  I thought, what the heck happened to my ambition?  What happened to my inspiration?  Is my novel lost?

Oh.  That's it.  I was only 24 hours out of SURGERY.  I can't change my own clothes, walk up the stairs or eat yet, but I expect to write a book just like that?   Hell-o??  Anyone in there, McFly?

When I finally crossed that 100 page threshold, I sighed a big sigh of relief.  Calming myself down, telling myself--it's still in there.  The story is still there.  Have patience.

So often you hear writing tips like:  Write Every Day!  Set Word Count Goals!  Don't Get Distracted!
These are important things to do.  They help us stay disciplined, which is imperative to publication.  But don't forget to also be patient with yourself.  Sometimes it's okay to sit back and take a break.  It's okay if you close the computer and take a nap because you haven't slept in eight days.  Plant your veggie garden.  Go for a hike with the family.  RECOVER FROM SURGERY.   Dur!

Well...I got through that excruciating twenty pages and now I am starting to heal as well.  I know my book will get done.  It will take a lot more time and patience than I sometimes think I have, but I'm reminded today  to stop and sit outside and soak up some sun. To chat with a dear friend who is bringing me lunch.
Do what you need to recharge and fill up that patience bucket.
It will do amazing things for your work.

Plotting...works?

A few weeks ago, I read The Plot Whisperer by Martha Alderson.  It was suggested to me by my lovely MFA advisor who, all semester, has seemingly reached through time and internet and figured out a way to read my mind and know exactly what I needed to do to improve my creative work packet after packet.

Up until reading this book, I'd had an idea of what a plot graph was.  I'd seen them used for classic literature.They (sort of) made sense. But I couldn't figure out how to apply my work to the graph--mostly because my work was in progress and not already printed on the shelves of bookstores around the world and studied over decades in nearly every American classroom.  Plotting Lord of the Flies on a graph makes sense.  Plotting a computer full of un-ordered scenes and bits and pieces of drafts and character sketches in multiple POV's thrown willy-nilly across emails and word documents was an entirely different matter.

When I first got the book, my right brain cringed.  Don't DO this to me, it cried!  Don't cramp my creative seat-of-my-pants style!  But I stuck through it and Alderson walked me through the process of plotting my entire novel.

Picture this:

We're in the middle of re-arranging our bedrooms, swapping out three out of four and having new carpet installed.  In the middle of this project, everything was put on hold for a couple weeks, leaving our house like an episode of Hoarders.  Furniture, boxes, stacks of books, electronics, wires, baskets of laundry, closets full of clothes--all in the living room.  It's a small room, folks.  Frightening.

Over three days, I decided I was reading this book and attempting the plot graph. I also decided to rip up the kitchen floor.  I've always had impeccable timing.   Not a project we had planned on, but there was something perfect in the volleying between the destruction of my 60 year old linoleum floor and the construction of a single plot line.  Also: I am just a little manic from time to time.

Anyway, there I was among the mess, sitting on the floor, papers and books around me like a force-field, plotting away.  I wrote out each scene on an index card--scenes I'd written, thought about, or created on the spot.  Many of which I'd dreamed up using Robert Butler Owen's process in his book From Where You Dream, another fabulous read that your right-brain will thank you for.  Alderson told me exactly where each scene should go from inciting incident to mid point to crisis, climax, and resolution.  And much to my surprise, it made sense.  The scenes I'd dreamed up actually fit together.  

Of course, I've had an over-arcing sense of the story since I first dreamed it up, but it had taken on several changes as I focused on character for many months.  I wasn't entirely confident that I still had a plot.  But I did.  I gathered up my index cards into Act 1, 2, and 3, sat down and began to write.

Today...I finished the "end of the beginning" as Alderson says.  The end of Act 1, the first quarter of the story.  And then I sat in the full realization that her plotting process has actually worked and may have saved my novel from right-brain oblivion.

I think I have discovered my own process in the process and that may be the best thing about this entire experience.  I'm becoming more confident that my WIP will see bookshelves.  But I'm in full confidence that even if it doesn't, I know what I'm doing and I can do it again.  Perhaps better.

If you're like me--a dreamer, a scene writer, someone who writes on instinct and emotional pulse points, this book will help you with the organizational side of things--the structure that makes your scenes come to life in a full length novel.

Feedback from the advisor:  "You're on the right track."

HUZZAH!

Death by Success

This morning I'm using my blog as my writing warm up.  All three kids are ready for school, the permission slips are signed, the lunch money is enveloped, and even the dog is fed. The kitchen is clean, thanks to my husband, and the bills are paid, thanks to the IRS.

Today is Monday.  The day most Americans loathe. But not me.  Everyone is about to clear out--except for the dog, but she will lay faithfully by my feet until I say it's time to go out.  And she won't complain.  Silence will soon take over my tiny Cape Cod as one by one the kids meet up with their friends and walk to the "red brick prison".

And then: it's Magic Time.

With everything in place, there is no reason for me not to be able to sit down and punch out the next several pages of my novel.

The outlines have been made, the synopsis approved, the index cards indexed, so there's no reason to not keep going.

Unless.

I am frozen by fear of success.

If you don't suffer from this seemingly ridiculous affliction, let me sum it up for you:

First of all, it's not an entirely conscious move.  I'm only aware of it because of a pattern of behavior that I have followed for decades.  Often, when I'm in the cycle, I don't even think about it, because often, I'm still working.  It's not until I have these paralyzed episodes in which nothing gets accomplished that I question what is wrong with me.

Many people are familiar with the fear of failure.  Most say: What if I don't succeed?  This is a fairly normal fear which often drives an individual to press on until they do not fail.  Of course, there are those who are paralyzed by that fear as well: Perfectionists.  These folks don't do the work because they're afraid it's going to suck.

But what if you know your work doesn't suck?  Then it's not a question of failure, it's a question of success.  Not if, but when and how and what will it look like.  How will it change my life?   And the anxiety attached to such unknowing can be crippling.  People who have experienced trauma--and this takes many forms--associate the same feelings of that heightened state of trauma with the heightened state of excitement, but they are familiar with trauma.  Not with success.

I was conditioned from a very young age to never get my hopes up.  The shoe would ALWAYS drop--often my parents would just burn the shoe--and so I learned to only trust in whatever little thing I could control. Which, obviously  as a child, isn't much.  I chose emotion.  I could control all emotion--aka: turn it all off.  Until I couldn't.  Which would then result in a horrific rage of a meltdown.  That, thankfully, has changed, however, I still regress to the emotional off-switch and the biggest one I control (or try to)  is happiness or excitement.

The feelings of excitement that come with nearing success are sort of terrifying.  Like Pavlov's dogs who knew they'd get food if the bell rang, I've been conditioned to know that I will be let down if I feel hopeful.  Fast forward  a lifetime of never allowing myself to feel excited for too long and I've created someone who is more comfortable with crisis and failure than success.  And sometimes even more comfortable with crisis than just a normal day.

When I write it out like that, it's rather sad.  I don't particularly like this about myself, but at the same time I recognize that hating a part of myself is counterproductive as well.  Because I am aware of this problem/issue/quirk I can write it out, shake it off, and get back to work.  But it's never without struggle.

It's been over a week now since I've worked on my novel.  There's been some stressful happenings in my life, but I feel like that's not an excuse.  You can't succeed if every little bump sends you off the path.  But see how easy it was for me to rush into that stress and embrace it and ditch my work?  Because I KNOW crisis.  I know pain.  I know how to slog through the shit.
But to succeed?  To soar?
It's a very scary, unknown.

Take Your Child to Work Day

If you have children, then at some point you have taken your child to work with you.  Or you will in the future when they are of an appropriate age.  Yes.  You will.  You must.  Perhaps you think your job is not conducive to children being present, and maybe, if you're on the President's security staff or you're an undercover spy for the government or you deep sea dive for a living then maybe you really can't bring your child to work with you.  Though, I learned to deep sea dive at 15...

IF you have a job that can allow children to visit, I encourage you to try it.  It's an important learning experience for both boys and girls.  It's an opportunity to see that their parent can be good at a role other than parent/cook/chauffeur.  (unless you are a cook or chauffeur) To see their dad passionate about something, hardworking and dedicated to a task aside from yard work and watching Sunday afternoon sports.  To see their mom isn't present only for the demands of their children or for doing laundry.  Not that every mom and dad looks like that, but you get the gist.

Going to work with a parent opens a child's eyes to the many roles a parent plays; it makes mom or dad slightly more dynamic. In particular, a son visiting his mother's work will help him see that women are dynamic and play many roles and not just "mom".  We want our boys to grow up respecting women and understanding that women do many things outside of taking care of the kids.  And of course, that's important for our girls to also see.  And a child who goes to work with their father gets to see Dad in a new light.  Father's are often mysterious to children and allowing them to see what you do all day long can be an eye-opening experience.

And if they are able to help you with your job, all the better.  Include them as much as possible, let them complete small tasks, make up tasks just so that they feel like they are part of what you are doing.  My mom was a single parent for all of my teen years and I remember going into her office at 12-13 years old and stuffing envelopes (prior to emails) and putting stamps on them.  Pretty tedious work.  But I felt like I accomplished something important when I was finished.  I was helping Mom do her job!  It was grown-up work.  As I got older, I actually worked for the office she worked for.  I held summer jobs and temporary positions when needed.  And now, as an adult, I work for a branch of that original office--Meals on Wheels.  In many ways, I've grown up in that organization and it's given me great compassion for seniors and social work in general. I graduated from college with a Social Welfare/Sociology degree.
My mom gave me a great gift.

This past week, my daughter went to work with her dad.  He teaches AP Psychology in high school.  She has been begging to go with him for years, but it wasn't until this year that we felt she was old enough to sit in on these high-level classes.  She had an absolute blast.  She adores her dad and seeing him in a completely new role only made the bond stronger.  Seeing him having fun with other kids, teaching them a completely foreign subject to her, and watching how he interacts with his colleagues enforces to her that he is good at what he does and needed where he works.  I think that's encouraging for a child and can make them very proud of their parent.

My youngest son came to work with me--at Meals on Wheels--which is conducive to a 9 year old's attention span and ability level. He was able to help me with nearly every task I am responsible for and he worked diligently the entire day, asking "what's next" every time he finished a job.  It gave me a chance to be incredibly proud of the hard worker that he is.

And then there is my "real" work.  Ironically the work I am not yet paid for, but that I hold to be the most important role outside of motherhood--writing.  My kids see me do this every day.  They can't help me, but they know I'm dedicated.  One weekend, I was plotting on a giant piece of wrapping paper and each of them passed by at some point and asked what the graph was for.  I was able to teach all of them about a plot graph and what it is used for.  And imagine my surprise when they were all genuinely interested!

So, if you haven't yet taken a child to work, I encourage you to try it.  And if you have a job that just isn't conducive to small fingers, then perhaps take them on a day off, at least show them where you work and what you do.  Give them a tiny glimpse into the person you are outside of the house so that someday they, too, will be dynamic adults.

One Ingredient

So, I'm getting this MFA.  Lots of us in the program have kids, spouses, pets that are neglected due to the crazy amount of time that goes into the work load of a master's degree.  Pretty much every motherly duty I have performed in the past has been completely erased from my memory bank.  I can't remember how to do anything anymore.
Bills are late.
Dog is wandering around outside off-leash.
Milk is left out on the counter all day long.  

Getting to school on time has new meaning.  Grab your coatbagbookslunchshoes RUN!!

Dinner?  Are you seriously hungry again?

And why can’t you just entertain yourself for a little while.  Yes, please.  Swim in the Delaware River.

I didn’t even bake or buy my daughter a cake for her 13^th birthday…

It gets crazy.  My kids have started fending for themselves in many new ways.  This really is good for them.  Most of the time.  At least that’s what I tell myself.  

And then there's moments like this:

One morning my husband and I came downstairs and my oldest, he’s 14, was making himself breakfast.  This is nothing new.  My son’s been making himself breakfast, except for an occasional Mom's pancake special, since he was about 8.  It was the first thing I let go of when I started writing, actually.  Just prop the box of cereal: Eat and be merry!  As they got older, they started making eggs and sometimes yogurt with fruit. 

But lately, it’s just gotten, well, bad.   In part because the grocery store is about the last place on earth I want to be.  Call me crazy, but folks blocking the eggs because they are on their phones texting about god knows what, but probably NOT eggs, drive me wildly insane.  I want to ram them with the cart.

Anyway.

It's a Sunday morning and my husband and I come downstairs and there is my 14 year old sitting at the table.  BTW, he’s about 6 feet tall and weighs 120 pounds.  He’s a bean pole.  Anyway, he’s sitting at the table with four pieces of toast.  Not the best breakfast, but what really stood out were the piles of white covering these pieces of bread.  

Then my eyes fall on a bag of Domino’s white sugar.

We burst out laughing at this hilarious and rather disgusting choice on my son’s part. I kind of wanted to yell at him, but really it was too funny.   So, of course we were going to give him a hard time.  And, of course, in true teenage style, he got really offended at our laughing.  I mean, O-F-F-E-N-D-E-D! 

But we couldn’t stop. 

You really thought that we would approve of this breakfast?

Shrugging.

What is it?  Sugar sandwiches?

Eye rolling.

Since when do we put that much sugar on...anything?

I just sprinkled it on. 

SPRINKLED?  Seriously where did you come up with such a ridiculous idea?

Then he lost it. 

 “ONE INGREDIENT,” he yells.  “I PUT ONE INGREDIENT ON MY FOOD AND YOU GUYS HAVE A COW!”

One ingredient?

What happened to butter?  Jelly?  Or a fried egg?

One ingredient? 

You just ate a cane field. 

One ingredient? 

You just depleted the entire crop in the state of Hawaii. 

You just put Brazil into economic crisis. 

Third world countries are crumbling! 

My husband and I Couldn't. Stop. Laughing.  Son was not amused.  But LOOK!

At least my dentist will profit from this whole thing...

So, you want to get an MFA...

Are you positive?
It's not for the faint of heart.
Nor the faint of mind, body, soul, and checkbook.

As a right-smack-in-the-middle-of-an-MFA student, let me run down the list of pros and cons for you and then you can decide if a program like this is right for you.

CONS:

Finances.  This is a given.  Unless you've been endowed a large sum by a dead uncle, or you are the CEO of some huge Fortune 500 company, (in which case you probably don't want an MFA) most likely you will need financial aid. Filling out the FASFA is like signing away your firstborn.  A year goes by, you are finally feeling secure in your debt and then you have to fill out that bastard a second time, dredging up all the anxieties once more.   Anything that involves looking at your tax return twice in one year is pretty much on my radar of suck.  And as you think about the fact that you only have two (and a half) years until you have to start paying on that s.o.b., you wonder if it just would have been easier to sign away the firstborn after all.

Time.  Time is no longer of the essence.  I don't know what that cliche' even means, but time is no longer anything other than someone standing behind you with a whip and screaming "GET IT DONE" because if you don't, you will die and your stories will die with you.  And then you will have filled out FASFA for nothing.  Twice.   And that's just on the overall scheme of things.  On a daily basis, you will wake up at 5, work for an hour or two, get you kids ready and off to school, and then you will either work on your school assignments all day long or go to a day job.  Then you will pick up your kids or come home from work where you squeeze in every minute at the computer that you can in between dinner (which we will get to next), basketball, theater, homework, and quality family time (which we will get to later).  Your bed will be beckoning, but you just have to put down one...more...word...

Health.  Forget everything your mother ever told you.  8-9 hours of sleep?  Probably not.  A healthy breakfast?  Who has time to eat?  An apple a day?  I had emergency surgery less than two weeks into my second semester.  Surprise!  You just never know what will happen.  And you have to keep writing.  Our family used to be the sit-down-to-dinner every night kind of family.  It's something we hold as important for our kids.  And while I believe we will return to it after grad school, right now the kids are lucky if there even is a dinner.  "Oh.  You're hungry?  Again?"   Furthermore, I think I've aged about five years in 6 months, complete with bags under my eyes, wrinkles, and some of the craziest hair-do's ever known to man. Pillow creases stay on my face for hours.  And exercise is no longer a daily occurrence  but something you grab when you have an extra hour.
Please refer to the above paragraph for information regarding extra hours.

Family.  Most grad students in my program do not have three children.  That should have been a red flag right there.  But alas, I've done everything else in my life with three children, so why not pursue an MFA?  It could have something to do with: "Mom why would you pay to go to school?"  "Mom, I need new shoes." "Mom, I have theater practice every night for the next three weeks and four shows every weekend."  "Mom, where's the milk?"  "Mom, SHE'S BREATHING MY AIR!"  I know there are successful authors out there with three--and more--children.  I believe they are all slightly insane.  But they are still alive.

And that brings me to the PROS.  "They are still alive."  Those who have gone before me have survived.  And this is why.

One to One Attention.  If you are a serious writer, and by serious I mean you would like to get published or you are of the mind that you can always learn, feedback is the single most valuable thing you can have to improve your craft.  Yes, you can get this in a critique group as well, but there is nothing like the correspondence with an accomplished author who knows exactly what you are going through and how to tailor your assignments to make your work shine.  A critique group can't do that.  Nor can your mother.  This is like having a mentor, a coach in your corner, someone who wants nothing more than for your work to soar and succeed in the literary world.

Growth.  I've been writing seriously for about eight years.  But I have seen more growth in my work in the last six months than in all of that time.  Yes, practice makes you better and you can get it on your own and you can get published without an MFA, but for me, this specified learning, literature analysis, craft analysis, and the direction into my own work has been an enormous gift.  I don't think I would have learned all of this on my own.  Maybe I would have gotten lucky regardless, but I'm writing now with far more knowledge than luck would have granted.  And if you are an artist, that's probably more important.  Writing aside, I'm also growing on a personal level: realizing abilities, embracing new opportunities, making new decisions that will effect the next chapter of my life.  Not a single day goes by that I feel stagnant.

Camaraderie.   Stephen King says in his novella The Body (Stand by Me): "I never had friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve."   So true.  But my fellow classmates come awfully close.  We are bonded not by age, sex, socio-economic status, race, religion, hometown, or even country!  We are bonded by a shared passion for writing and storytelling and the joys and struggles that come with that calling.  I've never had friends like I did when I was twelve, but I've never had friends like these either.  It's pretty remarkable.

Accomplishment.  Setting a lofty goal for yourself is terrifying. Especially when other mothers are looking at you like you're out of your mind.  "You go to school on purpose? You write books?  Why? (Not "How"?)  I could never find the time to do that." I can see how volunteering to go through all of this work and craziness when it's not required looks a bit mental.  But when you are passionate about something, you can always find the time.  And I am finishing things.  Critical papers, short stories, chapters, scenes and reading dozens of novels.  At the end, I will have a Master's in my hand.  And while some people see it as just a piece of paper, to me it represents two years of incredibly hard work and dedication to something that is important to me.  For the woman who has held about a thousand part-time jobs and been involved in a thousand more hobbies, a completed goal is huge.  A met challenge is enormous.  I like myself and my work more with each step I take, even on the days that are really, really hard because I know I can push through it.
Can you say that about your job?

So, you want to get an MFA?  I say, go for it.  You've certainly got me in your corner.