Can't Write With You Babe

Hello there again. It seems as if I've relegated my website to be my sounding board for writing complaints and such. I've been trying to write all morning but have been distracted by my husband and all the things he's working on—playing, making me read his work, talking on the phone—and I've come to realize that I do need to hear my thoughts when I'm writing. I either need complete silence, or the background sound (I like cafes or busy newsrooms) must be indistinct as to not distract me from my work. When I listen to music, it needs to not have any words at all, or else I'll go off and start daydreaming again.

Sylvia Plath

In any case, I should go back to my paid, consumerist ramblings. I have deadlines!

Still Writing

So… I finished my first draft and I'm still not happy. No one is happy after the first draft—just relived that the ordeal is over. I had to rewrite the lede an insane number of times before I settled on one, but even then I couldn't seem to sustain the energy. It was simply forced, kinda fake, and shallow. Right after writing it, I threw it back to my secret editor, my husband, A, and he tried to make sense of it. He couldn't! I need to get back on the page soon. I mustn't let it end like this!

Anyhow, I'm trying to find inspiration from narrative writers. I'm having a difficult time with narrative, maybe it's because I'm always lazy when it comes to storytelling. I don't like explaining so much, I'd rather people just read and check things out themselves. Here's Cheryl Strayed in Wild. 

The trees were tall, but I was taller, standing above them on a steep mountain slope in northern California. Moments before, I’d removed my hiking boots and the left one had fallen into those trees, first catapulting into the air when my enormous backpack toppled onto it, then skittering across the gravelly trail and flying over the edge. It bounced off of a rocky outcropping several feet beneath me before disappearing into the forest canopy below, impossible to retrieve. I let out a stunned gasp, though I’d been in the wilderness thirty-eight days and by then I’d come to know that anything could happen and that everything would. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t shocked when it did.
My boot was gone. Actually gone.

Anyhow, I must go back to writing. Ta-ta!

Only the marvelous

“I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."
Anaïs Nin

Anais as a Spanish dancer in Paris, under the name Anita Guilera (http://www.anais-nin.de/pics.html taken from the photographic supplement to the diary of Anais Nin)

The Great Crash

As far as I'm concerned, this is probably one of the most difficult weeks of my life. In plain words, it sucked. No it wasn't the worst, I've probably had more horrible days, like when my grandmother died and our publisher was asking me when I'd be finishing the magazine (that wasn't due yet, mind you). Nope, this isn't it—not the worst, not by a mile. But it was trying, it was difficult, and I'm glad it's (almost over).

Virginia Woolf’s writing table at Monk’s House, Sussex, England, 1967.  Photo by Gisele Freund.

Last week I was coming to terms with what they call writing stamina—how does one write a career piece in less than 2,500 words? Simple, you don't write with 2,500 words, you write with 6,000. And so I did write 6,000 words. I wrote it continuously with almost no sleep in a span of 12 hours. Making it necessitated many hours of research, interview, pre-writing, and fact checking, transcribing, and even watching films from the '60s. As to who the subject is—you'll find out soon enough. Probably in a few days. I'm quite excited about it.

I also had to finish most of my stories for Metro last week. Now anyone who know me well enough and have worked with me many times in the past would attest that I am simply unable to comply with deadlines. Which is why I have to trick myself into believing the deadlines are much much earlier. Otherwise, I won't be able to finish anything. I need that extra kick from deadline danger to get my into a sort of creative overdrive. Sadly, the idea of a looming deadline gives me extraordinary focus, one thing that's difficult for me to achieve without.

The thing is, after every writing marathon is the Great Crash. I am unable to function normally. I sleep poorly. I cannot spell ordinary words. I run out of ideas. I dislike anything bright. I avoid people. 

This was a trying week because I still had a lot to do despite this rollercoaster of emotions. Things to do, people to meet, stories to write, subjects to interview, people to shoot, events to attend (although I skipped out on most, sorry guys).

In any case, I'm glad this week is over, just 30 minutes and it'll be done. Monday will present another battle.  

Stuck, help me Susan Orlean

I’m stuck.

As I find myself in the process of writing another career story (when I say career, I don’t mean kinareer, in the vernacular—that I worked extra, double hard on something—but rather, that the bosses are paying more attention to this piece than any other celebrity piece I’ve written before), and at this moment, I am stuck. Grasping for straws, so the idiom goes, but thankfully I still have a few hours until I’m supposed to turn it over. In moments like this, when I’m stuck and need rhythm, I turn to writers that I like. One of those is Susan Orlean, probably one of the living writers I have most respect for. Why do I love her? She knows how to launch a kicker, charm you with unique turns-of-phrase, and install milestones to launch spurts of dopamine to keep you reading from paragraph to paragraph.

I have three books of her that I refer to all the time:

My Kind of Place

The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup

and Saturday Night

I also have a copy of The Orchid Thief but for the life of me, I can’t seem to finish it.

Times like these, I distract myself by walking around to find that elusive lead, one that will lead me from beginning to end. I hope I find you soon.