No more time suckers for this writer...

Well, that sounds easy enough.  Just eliminate all those time-sucking, mind-numbing social media avenues that lead me nowhere.  You know the ones.  That video you just have to see, that quiz you must take.  Kick them all to the curb, right?

Yet even as I write this, I know I won't give up Facebook or Twitter and there will always be the occasional email that I must respond to now.

But here's the thing:  I'm not going to give these things up.  I'm just going to reschedule them.

Every weekday morning, here's what I'm going to do.  I'm going to write.  Sometimes I'll work on a new story.  Sometimes I'll pull out a story that I started and didn't finish.  And then there are all those stories that, for one reason or another, got rejected.  I'm going to use the feedback I've received (from my lovely writer friends at Writers' Village University, or from the editors who rejected the stories in the first place) and I'm going to trust my instincts to keep what works and change what doesn't.  I'm going to rewrite those stories I think are worth salvaging and I'm going to send them out.  (And then cross my fingers.)

The other thing I'm going to do is blog more often.  That won't be hard because, as you faithful readers already know, my blogging activity has been just about zip.

Facebook and Twitter and other social media are good tools for a writer; they have their place.  I learn about submission calls there.  I read about my writer buddies' success stories.  I catch up on other people's writing blogs.  There are plenty of gems for writer folks.  All good things.

But when and how much?  Not during the morning hours when I will be too busy writing.  Not anymore.  I'll postpone it to a time when everyone in my family is doing their own thing (like when they're all plugged into their own devices...and don't take this to mean we don't have good old quality family time together, because we do, very often.  But sometimes, they are doing their own thing.).  Or maybe I'll take a little time in the afternoon before everyone comes home from school.

But writing comes before social media.  "So let it be written.  So let it be done."

Speaking of writing, please check out my recent releases.  I'm pretty thrilled that I am a contributing author in both of these anthologies, "Beyond the Nightlight" (A Murder of Storytellers) and "Robbed of Sleep Volume 2" (Troy Blackford Publications).  I hope you like them.  If you do, please consider writing a review.

Happy writing in this, your best year yet, 2015!

Cheers,
Lisa

Hello again

Oh my goodness!  Just look at all the cobwebs!  I knew it would be musty and stale in here, but this!

Well, I'll just get to work then, and clean it up a bit.

Okay, that's much better.

Oh, hi there!  You came to see me!  You are so sweet to visit me here, after I haven't blogged for the longest time and I made all those nice-sounding promises last time, about moving forward and all that. Well, come in then, have a seat.  Oh this is just great.  Sit in one of those big fat comfy pink chairs, now that they're all dusted off and not a smidge of cobwebs remain.

You make yourself at home and I'll go put on the tea.  Milk?  Sugar?  Okay, that's just great.  I'll be right back.

There we go, some nice hot tea.  And look, I brought in some raisin tea biscuits from the bakery down the street.  Help yourself, please.

Who?  Oh, over there.  Yes, I guess he is a little creepy, but you see, I bought him at a flea market and he just goes along with--well, all this Victorian parlour  theme.  But, yeah, he's got those eyes that seem to follow you.  Well, of course if he bothers you that much, I'll just put the hobby horse behind that lovely antique partition so he won't scare you any more.  You aren't the first one to be spooked by him, let me tell you.

You know, there's a little history that goes with him, that little horse, but I can see you aren't very comfortable with the whole idea so I won't tell you.  These stories aren't for everyone.

Anyway, how have you been?

Me?  I've been busy not blogging, obviously.  But I have been writing and submitting.  After months of rejection slips--and some of them were very nice, but still--I finally seem to be getting some good news.  First, my story, "One Perfect Rose", was published at Every Day Fiction in August.  Then my story, "No Choice", went online at Inner Sins on October 1.  In December, there's an upcoming anthology, Robbed of Sleep Volume 2, and my story, "You Can't Take it With You" will be in it.  I'm pretty excited about it.  And, just yesterday, I sent in my round two submission to the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge.  So, I've been busy.  Just not blogging.  Sorry.  I really will try to be better.

Anyway, back to you.  What have you been up to?  What?  The horse?  Oh go on!  He did not move out from behind that screen, that's impossible. What an imagination you have.

You have to go?  But you just got here.  Okay, I understand.  Well thanks so much.  I really do appreciate you being such a loyal visitor.  Come again, soon, okay?  Here, take some of these raisin tea biscuits with you.  No, really, I insist.  It's the least I can do.

Bye!  Maybe next time I'll tell you the story...or not.  Your choice.

It had to happen sometime.

Well, I knew it would come to this.  I knew that at some point I'd feel self-conscious about blogging.

Maybe you've felt this way, too...you wonder if you have anything new or different or even relevant to share? Well, lately that's what I've been going through with this blog.

And it's funny.  I couldn't be more productive in my other areas of writing.  I recently finished the twelve week program, "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron (and I plan on doing it again).  I've been faithfully writing my morning pages, "showing up to the page" just about every day, submitting stories, (I made it out of the first round in the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge, surprising myself by placing first in my group).

The writing life is good.  So what happened to my blog?

Maybe it started when my brother Jamie told me he read it.  But he didn't post any comments. So, what did that mean?  (And by the way, he's a very supportive guy, having outgrown the need to torment his older sister.  Usually.)

Okay then, so who else was reading...and not commenting?

Were they not commenting because (gasp) they had nothing good to say about it?  Or worse, maybe they weren't leaving a comment because my posts didn't make an impression one way or the other (gah!).

The stretch of days between my last blog entry and current opportunity to blog grew to monstrous proportions.  The more time that passed, the less I felt I could say--or even have the right to say--out there in Blogville (and I'm the mayor!).  How could I possibly say anything when clearly I had nothing to say? (Even Seinfeld couldn't sell that idea.)

My blog would gather dust and disintegrate into the wind of disuse and then simply cease to be.

Well, that would suck.  Forget that idea.

The only thing to do, then,  is keep blogging, moving forward, risking the possibility of turning out crap from time to time and maybe...just maybe...writing a blog that makes a difference to somebody, somewhere.

Choices

I've been thinking a lot lately about the choices we make, and how each choice leads us to where we are now.  Maybe it's the whole New Year thing, the endless possibilities that lay before us, like fresh snow, no mistakes in it yet, still white and pristine.

I believe we, as mere mortals, get into trouble when we somehow forget we've made out own choices, written our own scripts.  We create our reality, today, tomorrow and beyond.  Does that mean that everything goes exactly as we want it to?  No, of course not.  It never can go precisely according to our plan.  (And where would the fun be in that, anyway?)

Maybe it's more accurate to say our lives are really a series of rewritten scripts, edited daily.

You make your draft and then something happens that causes you to react (rewrite the script), and so it goes.  It's an ongoing series of changing a word or a paragraph or a whole chapter and then forgetting we did it.

And that's when people will often say they "have no choice", that they "must" do such and such.  But really, how often is that the case?

You aren't really stuck.  You don't "have" to do something.  You choose to (or choose not to).  These decisions bear consequences, but still...the choice is yours.

Although there are circumstances beyond our control, we still have a choice how we deal.

How do you choose to live your best life in 2014?

This morning my daughter woke up with a "scratchy throat".  Noting to myself that she (and my two boys) will be off for Christmas break in just four days--and that this isn't the first such occurrence on a Monday morning--I was less than sympathetic.

"Take something," I said.

She didn't want to.  She wanted to go back to bed.

"You were able to eat your breakfast okay," I offered.

"It comes and goes," she told me.

"Well maybe if  you take something, it'll go away again."

She trudged off in response, probably cursing her bad luck to have such a mean mother.  By the time she got ready to go (and yes, she took two ibuprofen and packed some lozenges), she was feeling much better.

So that gives me today to write.  And for a few more days, I get to live the dream, having the time and space and opportunity to write when I want to (well, mostly).

This morning, I had planned to write a blog about how I wished my writer self would go into hibernation during Christmas break, since I won't have the above mentioned freedom to write.  But you know what?  I think really, even when we writers aren't writing, we're thinking about writing, running our next rewrite through our heads, our characters are still talking to us, and we are ultimately recharging for our next writing session, no matter what the season.

I plan to have the best Christmas of all, knowing my words and all the possibilities they bring will be waiting for me in the New Year.

And I wish you all the merriest of Christmases too :)  Cheers!

The Challenge

Well, I made it to round three in the NYC Flash Fiction Challenge.  I was so thrilled, I could hardly believe my good luck.  And, to boot, I got assigned the horror genre which I'd hoped for.

Everything seemed to go tickedy-boo.  I woke up Saturday morning, wrote my entire story and felt pretty good.  As the day crept on, though, I had this terrible feeling that it had been too easy.  I didn't like the title. I didn't like the ending.  There was too much telling and not enough showing.  I wasn't satisfied with my references to the main character's screwed up childhood.

So I rewrote.  My hubby Chris said, "You know you're going to rewrite that about a hundred times, right?" Well, maybe not a hundred times, but many times.  Yes, that's true.  He called it.

When I finally submitted I felt...unsettled.  Had I made a grievous error by sacrificing some of the raw emotion for a more subtle approach?  Was it too subtle?  Did I remember all the submission instructions?  I did remember to fill in all relevant fields on that submission page, didn't I?  It was in the correct font, right?

After I pressed send, I felt shaky.  What if I made a terrible, avoidable mistake?

(Yes, of course I went back and reread it one last time!)

In the end, it's out of my hands.  I'm grateful for the chance to have taken the challenge.  Now it's over and, hey, what's the worst thing that could happen?  Someone has to place last.

Writer's block is a funny thing.  Well, actually no, it's very un-funny...sad, frustrating, aggravating in its own maddening way.  

Perhaps it's more accurate to label it a strange thing.  

I hope my writer friends chime in here.  Doesn't it seem that the more we (sometimes force ourselves to) write the less we are plagued by the writer's block gremlin?  And of course, the opposite is equally true.  The less we write, the more we are intimidated by all those nasty blank spaces.  The act of writing primes the pump.

When I'm stumped and the blank page is HUGE, and feel like the creative juices have evaporated, I find all sorts of reasons why I don't have the time to write.  I have three children, two of which have special needs.  Advocating for them, scouting out and implementing services and strategies, takes a lot of time.  But the truth is, everyone is busy.  There are always other things we could be doing.  They're just excuses.  They're just the voice we shouldn't ever listen to, telling us we have nothing original or worthwhile to say.  Keep writing, move beyond the wall you perceive.  It's an imaginary wall anyway.  And you can break through it.

I keep hearing over and over, and it's just as true every time, writers write.  Every day.  That's what we do.  

For all my writer friends, do you write every day?  Do you feel terribly guilty when you don't?  What are some of your strategies to make it part of your daily routine?