on writing | rejections and breaking the rules

On a Wednesday afternoon, in my outdoor writing haven.

Last night, during our writing class, our instructor pulled out a manila folder filled with rejection letters and sprawled them all over the floor.  There were hundreds of them in various sizes, colors and styles, but all stated pretty much the same thing: "Thank you for your submission ... But, I'm sorry ..."

As the other students and I rummaged through the letters, I felt this surge of excited anticipation I had been missing for a long while.  The excited anticipation was, however, for something you probably wouldn't expect.  Because it involved the one thing that is universally disliked, if not feared: rejection.  But, as my fingers touched those letters sent to my instructor, who by far, is the best writing instructor I've ever had, this feeling came over me - I can't wait for my first rejection letter.  Sound a little crazy?  Yes, I know.  But, you see, that rejection letter means something.  Would mean something.  Would mean I actually finished a written work - a short story, an essay, a novel - something.  A finished product.  And at this point, I just want a finished product.

Because at the rate I'm going, I'm never going to get there.  Although I can give a detailed summary of my novel, talk about all the complex situations the characters go through and even give a short biography on all of my characters, I can't move past writing the beginning of the story.  I keep re-writing it over and over again.  So, as of tonight, I decided to break the rules (whatever the rules may be).  I'll write the story from the middle to the end and go back to the start.

It fits so perfectly with my personality.  Remember how I said that introductions make me uncomfortable?  Well, apparently, writing introductions or beginnings are also challenging for me.  So, let's see how I do with this new rule-breaking strategy.  Start with the middle.  Wish me luck!  I do want to finish this novel already.

          

the muse

I haven't worked on my novel in awhile.  It feels as if I haven't worked on anything creative in a long time.  My brain is devoid of ideas and imagination.

When I was a kid, I loved to make up stories and act them out.  In fact, before I wanted to be a lawyer or a writer, I wanted to be an actress.  A dancer.  A performer of stories.  And I just made up a whole lot of things.  I had an imagination that was on constant overdrive.

But lately, in fact, for quite awhile now, I've had this block where my imagination once roamed freely.  I have even lost the desire to tell a story.

And yet, I want to feel the need to tell a story again.

So, I decided to go back and read the original excerpts of my novel.  The diary-like entries that were written while I was in the midst of the heartbreak I was writing about.  Those pieces were the real thing.  The raw emotions that inspired the story.  My muse.  I thought that if I wanted to finish my novel, I needed to remember those feelings.  Feel.  Them.  Again.

But, as I read page after page, I felt ... nothing.  I wasn't overcome with nostalgia.  I wasn't overcome with sadness over this significant heartbreak.  I wasn't overcome with feelings of regret and loss.  I didn't feel anything.  But, honestly, a little bored.  I didn't even feel bad for the old me that went through that significant heartbreak that made it difficult to breathe at times.  Nothing.

Time does heal our wounds.  Even very deep ones.  And it is possible to get over someone.  It is possible to have loved and lost, and moved on.  

And so, maybe this is the best time to go back to that story.  Because now, I can work on it from a purely creative perspective, rather than the perspective of the heartbroken in need of therapeutic venting.  I can practice using my imagination once again.  Refuel my creative energy.

My mind is still devoid of ideas and imagination though.  So, how do I work through that?

Listen to some U2.  This song does it for me all the time.  Never fails.  

Bono is my muse.

    

own it | on seeing and describing the world as it had never been seen and described before

Yesterday was a complete sluggish of a day.  I think all of the activities of the past few weeks, on top of the mountain of work I've had to get through, just got to me.  I was exhausted.  Mentally and physically.  So, by two o'clock, I decided to stop pushing myself.  I surrendered.  Gave in to the exhaustion.  And allowed myself to rest.  

So, I watched Thursday's episodes of The Vampire Diaries and Beauty and the Beast.  Guilty pleasures are the best!  Then, I decided to go for a long walk around the neighborhood.  And take pictures.  As I took photographs to Mat Kearney playing on my iPod, this thought came to me: I used to be a poet.  

But, I haven't written a poem in a very long time.  

I remember telling a dear friend awhile back that writing a poem is not only about the words and how you structure them.  It's not about rhyming.  It's about feelings.  And to write a poem, you have to allow yourself to feel.  Allow yourself to go to this place deep inside of you that no one else has reached, and then pull yourself out of it and allow those feelings to roam around a world you'd never been to, but had always dreamed of and imagined.  It's about allowing yourself to see the world in such a way that had never been seen before.  Then, sharing it for others to see.  

And I realized that although I haven't written a poem, I have photographed poems.  And that there is no such thing as I used to be a poet.  I am a poet.  

I met this writer a couple of weeks ago, and she asked me what kind of story I was working on.  I told her I was trying to write a fiction novel.  She set me straight, and said there is no such thing as trying to write a novel.  You are writing a novel, she said.  Own it.  You are a writer.  It doesn't matter if you've never published a piece of work.  Or you never, ever publish a single word in your life.  You are a writer.  

And I am a poet.  

around the neighborhood | 04.19.13