Logic and emotion battle over priorities

Today's Mood: Disappointed. Today's Music: Foo Fighters. Today's Writing: Revising Black Dragon (again.) Today's Quote:

"I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities." -Whoopi Goldberg

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I'm starting to think I'm weird. Don't laugh. I'm talking beyond the normal weird. Maybe even obsessive weird. This diagnosis comes from recent events. Get this. I belong to two writing groups. Each group meets once a month (which isn't enough for me), so between the two groups, I have two small group writing meetings a month. Last month only 3 people could come per group. A bit slim, but workable. And this month, no one could come--to either group. Except for me. Sigh. My momma always told me to look for the common denominator. Guess that would be me.

Now the logical part of me (yes, there is one, although it is by far the slimmer of the twins), says that it is a busy time of year, most of us have day jobs, and all of us have lots of things to do. Yup, very reasonable. But the fat twin, the emotional one, is disappointed. And thinks these are scheduled meetings, people! (hear her? She really is a drama queen). It's not like you can't schedule most things around a once a month meeting! Logical twin-Okay, yeah, I get hernia surgery. You're excused. I get moving and boxes everywhere and no DSL and no bed. You're excused too. Bloated emotional twin-But come on! Isn't your writing more important than some of this stuff?

It's about priorities. Fat Emo cannot understand why other writers don't seem to put more priority on their writing. But Logic says that, as the common denominator, I'm the one with the screwed up priorities. And when I combine my split personalities, I get that writing fulfills different needs for different people.

Still, can't but help feel disappointed. I write no matter what, but being a part of a small group makes me feel like a writer instead of just a mom/wife/housekeeper/librarian/goddess--oh wait, that's just a fantasy of mine. Seriously, if I don't keep my writing as a high priority, it'll just disappear amid piles of laundry, sick kids, happy kids, school projects, meals, meetings, and all the other things that DEMAND my attention.

Okay, well, I feel a little better. I guess I'll just buckle down and write more. After all, best way to feel like a writer is to write. Right?

On a different note, let me tell you, if you have to stay home from work with a sick kid, pink eye is the way to go. I brought Shanna in to the doctors on Sunday and she was diagnosed with pink eye. Since kids are not supposed to go to school until they have been on the eye drops for 24 hours, she missed morning kindergarten--and I got to sleep in. Well, sort of. I actually took my oldest to school with her invention (let me tell you, school projects are getting much more complicated these days. Or at least, parents are making them that way!)

Anyway, Shanna and I colored, and beaded, and went hot tubbing since she didn't feel sick and was in a great mood. Now if I could just catch pink eye and stay home.... Just joking (well, sort of). But seriously, here I figured out that all I have to do is revise 9 pages a day and I'd have the Black Dragon revision done by the deadline with several days to spare. And then I proceed to use all my days to spare because I'm knocked out of my normal early morning writing routine.

The good news is that I don't hate Black Dragon. In fact, dare I say it?, I even like it. But it does need to be shortened (for the contest) and I find myself tightening, adding smoother transitions, and tweaking the dialogue (I'm still too wordy for my male characters.)

Anyway, logic says to tell you all that I understand your need to do things other than writing. After all, some writing is better than none. But Fat Emo says what the heck is your problem? Don't you know that writing is the best thing ever?! Writing is the drug of choice, a spiritual experience, a high like no other, a...a... words can't express it. You are all so screwed up. You need to see a therapist. Seriously. I feel sorry for you.

*(Current blogger takes no responsibility for the opinions expressed by Logic or big Fat Emotion.)

Writing Books--Inspiration or Distraction?

Today's Mood: Inspired (I hope). Today's Music: U2 at the moment (I haven't settled yet) Today's Writing: Endless possibilities (I've got 8 hours to write today) Today's Quote:

And your main obsessions have power; they are what you will come back to in your
writing over and over again. .... They probably take over your life whether you
want them to or not, so you ought to get them to work for you. - Natalie
Goldberg

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I'm reading Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down the Bones. It makes me laugh in spots--she has a section on obsessions and talks about writing as an obsession for some people. She talks about writers who always think they should be writing no matter what else they might be doing--ha! I can relate to that. And writers who drink or eat too much chocolate (me) are doing it not because they are writers, but because they are writers who are not writing. And obsession twisted into something else.

On the whole, I enjoy reading books about writing. I ordered Heather Seller's latest writing book--Chapter after Chapter. But I found it interesting that when I talked to another writer about Sellers other book Page by Page, she didn't like it--and at first I felt the same way. Because Heather's writing style isn't mine. I'm not going to start writing by hand. I'm not going to draw little circles when I get stuck (I eat chocolate instead--or take a shower if I can). But in the end, I found if I take the stuff that does work and add it to my mix, it works.
When I was new at writing, it freaked me out. I felt like I had to do it (writing that is) a certain way. What I have learned from reading and attending writing conferences and small writing groups--and most of all just by writing--is that there are as many different ways to write as there are writers. I've started to do the teacher inservice rule (works for church sermons too)--if I get one good idea from it, then it's worth it. Granted, if I buy the book, I'm hoping for more than one idea. (I'm a librarian--go to your library and rent it free, then at least it doesn't cost you cold hard cash if it sucks.)

So, having said all that, any of you have a great writing book to recommend? Heather Sellers book Page by Page is inspiring to new writers (In my opinion) I love Anne Lamont's Bird by Bird. So far I'm enjoying Writing Down the Bones (I find it makes me inspired to write every day) And I have to admit I have a librarian's obsession with owning books, so I also have Story Structure Architect (kind of freaks me out because I'm still not sure about the whole plot thing--I just want to tell the story), Novelist's Essential Guide to Creating Plot and Novelist's Essential Guide to Creating Scenes, Immediate Fiction (haven't read it yet), Definitive Book of Body Language, Sometime the Magic Works (Terry Brooks), Character Naming, Character Traits (still waiting for that one to show up in the mail), Talk the Talk (another I'm waiting for), and of course, The Writer's Market.

I agree with Seller's on one thing for sure: writing means sitting down and writing--not reading about writing. I made the rule that I can only read about writing outside my writing time. (Incidentally, I've had to do the same thing with character profiling. I was starting to spend more time drawing and profiling my characters than actually writing!)

Happy writing!