writing: getting started

Recently, several people have asked about the process of writing, and how a person goes about writing a book.

While there are plenty of books and guides available today to walk new and would-be writers through precisely that process, there's no substitute for the wisdom of experience—and for each writer, new and accomplished alike, that experience is different. Each writer has his or her own organizational style, unique methods of preparation, superstitions, scheduling eccentricities, and preferred tools (e.g., writing long-hand on legal pads, using CopyWrite software on an iBook)—individual tried-and-true tricks to getting the job done. And there's still room for experimentation.

I currently have one book in print and two others in the process of revision—not to mention the projects that haven't yet made it past the first couple of chapters. For both fiction and non-fiction, writing seems to be a different process every time. The best piece of advice that I can offer, however—and that pretty much every other author has echoed—is to simply stick with it, especially when you're convinced that all you're doing is churning out absolute crap. That's what editing is for.

I'm currently reading John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley; I'd only been required to read an excerpt of this while in high school, and I've been wanting to get to the full book ever since. What amazes me is Steinbeck's deep level of honesty about himself—about how he couldn't think of anything clever to say on the spot and so kept himself awake at night listing everything he would have said instead if he'd thought of it; how every time he sat down to begin work on a new book, he was convinced that it would end up being a complete failure; and that once he did get started, he was convinced he'd never be able to finish the story properly.

These were the obstacles that Steinbeck—a Pulitzer Prize winning author—was still trying to surmount in his late 50s and early 60s. If that's not both humbling and encouraging to first-time and published-but-still-struggling authors, then I don't know what is.

I also keep in mind Hemingway's assertion that "the first draft of anything is sh*t."

Two books on the writing process by established authors that I've enjoyed are Stephen King's On Writing, and Kurt Vonnegut's Timequake. Granted, Vonnegut wasn't seeking to write a book on writing; instead, he was so repulsed by his first draft of Timequake that the final story is interrupted by side-chapters in first-person about how frustrated he is with it, and how he got started as a writer while working as a car salesman.

Another great resource is Chris Baty's No Plot? No Problem! Although intended as a guide for getting through National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) held across the globe each November, Baty also offers some great tips for how to get started on a writing project, and how to keep yourself working on it even when you want to throttle all of your characters and then yourself (and, yes, we ALL have those moments, even when writing non-fiction).

Wayne Dyer offers great advice: Before he begins writing each day, he centers himself and prays to the Universe that he might be of service; then he lets it flow through him from there. Not a bad space to be in, and it does work.

The biggest trick is to simply get over yourself. Let go of your expectations about what your project should or shouldn't look like when you're done with it. Leave your anxieties and insecurities at the door. Trust yourself. Don't waste time agonizing over the best vocabulary word or the wittiest turn of phrase. (Again, that's what editing is for.) Just sit down and do it, and don't worry about it being utter garbage—the first draft always will be.

Now, if I could just get pumped about applying the above to the revision process.... Grr.

hidden gifts

I have been thinking recently about the incredible wealth of inherent gifts and talents—our true natural resources as human beings—that go untapped the world over, day upon day, lifetime after lifetime. Many of us never know what inspired abilities lurk just beneath the surface of our daily responsibilities and consciousness, while others are painfully aware of the unsung songs and blank canvases that could have come alive, if we would only have made the commitment of time, attention, and opportunity to make it happen.

I think of the genius wasted, of countless untapped minds whose hands were kept busy through forced labor, picking cotton every day of their lives; the would-be mathematicians and diplomats who likely received no education and then died in childbirth following a short career as wife and mother; the artists, scientists, and healers whose gifts were terrorized into dormancy by laws and attitudes regulating religion, sexuality, gender, caste, parentage, and skin color. And I wonder how many more—especially today—keep our own gifts hidden safely away simply because we are afraid of sharing them.

Sometimes we are afraid of not being good enough, not measuring up to some elusive standard we cannot quite define. Worse, we may be afraid of not being perfect, assuming that only talents that can consistently be performed with flawless precision are worthy. We might compare ourselves to the greatness and accomplishments of others and become discouraged, forgetting that every master was once a beginner. And some of us are even afraid of the very success we secretly crave, unwilling to give up the safety of our cocoons and to be subjected to the evidence of both our imperfections and our magnificence.

Too many people go through life never knowing what precious gifts they hold within, what true resources they are. That is a tremendous tragedy. Maybe I'm just an optimistic idealist, but I honestly believe that each person has real value and has so much more to offer the world than just showing up for work each day. We all have a gift to share—even if it is something that only ever touches one other person.

In her Mutant Message Down Under, Marlo Morgan recounted the months she spent in the Australian outback with an unusual group of Aborigines who referred to her—and to all "civilized" people—as "Mutants." She wrote:

After the game was over, one of the men asked me if it was true some people live their entire lives and never know what their God-given talents are? I had to admit I had patients who were very depressed, who felt life had passed them by, but others had made a contribution. Yes, I had to admit, many Mutants did not think they were given any talent, and they did not think about the purpose of life until they were dying. Big tears came into his eyes as he shook his head, showing how difficult it was to believe such a thing could happen.

"Why can't Mutants see, if my song makes one person happy, it is a good job? You help one person, good job. Can only help one at a time anyway."

Just for today, why not reach down within and bring your own inherent talents out into the light? For those who are not used to living so openly, this can be both an exciting and frightening idea. Still, it's worth giving it a shot. Try it for a day, for a week, or longer. Offer the benefits of your strengths to your neighbors and friends, without judgement or fear. There is nothing to lose, and everything to gain. You need not be a proven and accomplished master to be of value to your community. All you have to do is be open, and willing.

As my reminder to myself to "get over myself"—to let go of my insecurities and rationalizing—and just get on with it, I keep the following on the wall of my office:

I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.
—Rabindranath Tagore

What song have you come to sing?

questing for cupcakes

Don't ask me why, but several weeks ago, I got a strong craving for Hostess cupcakes. Not those chocolate ones that Dad preferred, but the orange-flavored cupcakes with yellow icing that I had loved as a child.

After a couple of days of trying to deny my desire, I gave in and went to the store. Haggen's didn't have them. A few days later, I looked for them at Albertson's, with no luck. Another few days went by, and a visit to my local 7-11 also resulted in disappointment.

Where were my cupcakes?

Although one friend reminded me that products can get rotated in and out of stores on a seasonal basis, I decided to go to the source: I wrote an e-mail to Hostess asking for their help.

Yesterday, I received the sad news that Hostess has discontinued their orange cupcakes. I feel silly for being disappointed over the disappearance of a manufactured, artificially preserved, and shrink-wrapped baked good, but the nostalgia remains.

Still, I was pleased to see that at least one company has these available to ship:

Fresh Chocodiles—Order Hostess Orange Cupcakes for Delivery

Now that I think of it, however, I'm not sure I could actually stomach one of those suckers.

;)

scorched earth

Early this morning, the State of California executed Stanley Tookie Williams—by means of lethal injection—for his conviction of the robbery murders of four people in Los Angeles in 1979.

Those who know me well understand that one of the reasons I left my home state of Virginia was to distance myself from such frequent use of the death penalty. About half of the executions in the United States are carried out by Virginia and Texas combined. Texas, with a much larger population, has executed more people than the Commonwealth of Virginia, but per capita, Virginia puts more people to death.

I was a member of my local chapter of Amnesty International. I wrote letters, made telephone calls, and attended vigils. As I've written in a previous blog entry, genuine intent, I'd even started work on a book about the death penalty, but I was just too close to it at the time. It was happening around me, and I couldn't make it stop. The Commonwealth of Virginia was executing people, and doing so in my name, and the names of all its citizens. I simply couldn't be a part of it anymore.

Oregon does have the death penalty, though it is not used nearly as frequently as in Virginia, Texas, or other death penalty states. Still, I am uncomfortable with the possibility that down the road, my adopted home may choose to kill someone, in my name.

This isn't some preachy essay on the sanctity of life, or how "an eye-for-an-eye leaves the whole world blind." My thoughts on the American penal system might easily fill an entire volume, and Williams' work and books since he was sentenced to death certainly argues that he grew into someone much different than the man who had been convicted in 1984.

However, I do believe that violence begets violence begets violence, and that the only way to stop this downward spiral—because it's obviously not working—is to get the hell off of it.

Where is the compassion? Where is the empathy? Not only for Williams and his family, but for the families of the murder victims? For the children who are growing up in an increasingly violent world, receiving such mixed messages from their own government?

Sister Helen Prejean—a Roman Catholic nun and prominent opponent of the death penalty who wrote Dead Man Walking, on which the movie of the same name was based—was quoted this morning in a CNN.com article as describing the death penalty as "gang justice":

"Gang justice is, if you kill a member of our gang, we kill you -- and don't tell me anything about how you changed your life or what you're going to do... You kill, and we kill you. And that's what the United States of America is doing with this."

Isaac Asimov stated that "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." Some will argue that "sometimes you have to fight fire with fire," but that still leaves you with a lot of scorched earth.

before and after

I was talking with a friend recently about her decades' long struggle with her body image, and railing against the little voice inside that kept telling her, "When I lose weight, I'll be happy." She has been lucky enough to understand that in reality it's the other way around—that when she's happy, she has a tendency to lose weight—and that having "the perfect body" has very little to do with whether or not she's truly happy in her life.

My big "when/if" assumption has been tied to money and financial security. "When I win the lottery...." "When I'm making $150,000 per year...." Here in the West, money has pretty much become our deity, and we've lost sight of what is of true value in life. We're trained to keep score with money—to use it as a measure of success, a measure of power and prestige, a measure of worthiness, and even a measure of happiness.

It also doesn't help that I come from a family that has traditionally been overly concerned with money—I have inherited my Depression-era grandparents' financial anxieties—nor that I was raised upper-middle class and was trained to expect a basic minimum of affluence that is far beyond the means of most others.

What I've found in my own experience is that all the material stuff isn't nearly as important to me as I was led to believe—and becoming decreasingly significant by the minute—although that need for financial security lingers. It probably wouldn't hurt to tend to my root chakra.

I've been thinking on the following lately:

Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

In other words, the mundane aspects of life are here to stay. I'm still working on "being in the world, but not of the world." Not so easy when the heart and mind yearn for something so much more significant and meaningful, while the body still needs to be clothed, fed, and sheltered. (And the dogs need walking.) I am most definitely a spiritual being having a human experience—and it's the human part that is so very frustrating. Sometimes I muse that if I didn't have a body and could just hang out on higher planes all the time, I'd be much better off—at least, life (or something like it) would be easier. Silly, but it has occurred to me.

From Dan Millman's Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior, spoken by Mama Chia:

"Certain mystical techniques and substances have been known for centuries to provide glimpses of the upper floors [of awareness and spiritual evolution]. These are best treated as sacred, rather than recreational, activities; they can be useful as a 'previews of coming attractions.'

"Many well-intentioned, lonely, bored, or desperate people generate spiritual experiences through a variety of techniques.... But then what? What have they got? They return to their normal states more depressed than ever.

"Spirit is always here, always with us, around us, inside us. But there are no shortcuts to this realization. Mystical practices generate heightened awareness, but if experiences aren't grounded in a responsible life in this dimension, they lead nowhere."

Ah, so I'd better stick with my body, then. The heavier, more ordinary aspects of life are pretty much inescapable. Whether or not I choose to view them as tedious is up to me, but I still need to find that harmonious balance between consciousness expansion and making sure there's enough dog food in the house. Chop wood, carry water.

I've mentioned previously that, for the most part, the women healers and writers—pioneering new classes and techniques of healing and release, working to raise awareness, devoting their lives to healing service and spiritual learning—who have served as my role models haven't had to support themselves through their work. Every last one of them has been married to a man with a lucrative income that easily supports them both, allowing her to do her "woo-woo work" without having to worry about earning a living—at least, in the early years of establishing herself.

Others have managed to support themselves, but through painful compromises—such as activating for peace while working defense contracts to pay the bills. So self-sufficiency in right livelihood is not something that I've found to be adequately modeled in the real world. Maybe it's partly my job to do that for others. I'm still working out how to make that happen.

In the meantime, I don't know any other way to be. Once you've outgrown your old shoes, you simply can't wear them anymore as you walk around in the world.