Writing Is Enough. Except When It's Not

I tell myself: Less than one percent of material submitted is accepted. Only one can be the winner of a contest. Writing is subjective. Writing is enough. And it is.

Except, when it’s not.

Rejected. Winner-not. Two slap-downs to my writing ego within twenty-four hours. Again.
And I got past my allowed fifteen minutes of funk in good shape, I thought, but as I watched Maddie Rose smack-down Zoie with an ill-advised bid for play. I realized I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t stop crying. I’m relieved my husband was out of town. He doesn’t quite understand why I put myself through it. If I could stop, I would.

So, I took a bit longer feeling sorry for myself, than I usually allow. Maybe, a good half-hour longer, then I got busy. There is editing to do and I’ve signed up for another poetry class toward the middle of October. I need to do a bit of preparation for that because as I take the class I intend to continue with the edits as I am determined to finish this book to my satisfaction and send it out. I know it is taking on a lot, but I need this.

It’s that time of year. Oh, not of tangerine and burgundy leaves and slanted sunlight, not of fading gardens and harvest, although that is all true. Around this house, this time of year heralds a world gone mad, in my opinion. There is no account of why two people fall in love and autumn always brings this home.

End of September and first of October brings the loss of husband. Oh, he’s hanging around but mind, and attention, and brawn are all bent toward: HUNTING! Now, me? I’m on the deer and elk’s side, cheering for their team, making my own safety zone. If I’m recruited to beat the brush, I shoo anything I find in the opposite direction of the rifles. (You can see why I am no longer recruited. I am the odd one—That tree-hugger type.)

Hey, I make no sense, but I’m practical. I understand the theory behind hunting, I’ve eaten elk and venison, I love to shoot, but I can’t point a gun in the direction of anything living, except, on certain days, publishers, editors, and men in general, one specifically on certain days. That’s actually a lie. Four, on certain days. I raised three boys, but that’s another story all together, isn’t it? And am I wrong, don’t we women feel that way every once in a… all right…a lot?

Hunting in my husband’s family was the BIG EVENT, the traditional, the Christmas. It was planned for and reminisced about all year long. Male children (and later, female children) were pulled out of school, vacation days were used, gear was fixed, bought and packed. It was big. It is still big.

My contribution, then, is to help feed the bunch. Tradition now includes my mother’s chocolate chip cookies. These are one of the first things I cooked at home. The recipe originally was in a small Nestles Toll House recipe book that came with the chocolate chips many years ago. The book, the size of a recipe card is little more than a few pages bound together with two staples. It’s yellowed and stained but it makes me smile. My mother changed a few ingredients to please her tastes. She gave the recipe to her mother, who added cinnamon and cooked them a bit less, so they were softer. Both versions are childhood to me. I send these to the mountains with the guys.

Chocolate Chips with Oatmeal Cookies
4 eggs
3 cups flour
2 tsp. salt
2 cups shortening (must be Crisco)
11/2 cups brown sugar (dark)
11/2 cups sugar
2 tsp. soda
2 tsp. hot water
2 cups walnuts
1 lg. pkg. Nestles butterscotch chips (2 cups)
1 lg. pkg. Nestles semi-sweet chocolate chips (2 cups)
4 cups oats
2 tsp. vanilla
Sift together flour and salt. Cream shortening. Add sugars gradually, creaming until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Dissolve soda in hot water and add to creamed mixture alternately with sifted dry ingredients. Add nuts, chips and oats. Mix. Add vanilla. Drop by teaspoon onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375º for 10 to 12 minutes. Note: You must use Crisco, the butter flavor is best. You, also, must use Nestles chips for this recipe to turn out right. (Try it with white choc instead of butterscotch)

Of course, they have to eat more than cookies. The guys each take a dish. This is a favorite of mine to fix, but I use this recipe a lot. It’s tasty and so easy. I love the lemony flavor. I serve it with rice and a green vegetable.

I got this recipe out of a magazine years ago and use it pretty much as is, except, I’ll use canned chicken broth instead of the water and bouillon cube as I have that on hand. I add about 1 teas. grated lemon rind to the flour mixture. I do not use salt. Adding the lemon rind compensates for that.

Lemon Chicken
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
¼ cup flour
½ teas. salt
1/8 teas. pepper
Butter
1 cup water
1 chicken flavored bouillon cube
2 small lemons

Mix flour, salt, lemon rind and pepper. Coat chicken. Reserve flour mixture. In skillet over medium high heat, melt 3 Tbls. butter. Cook chicken until lightly brown on both sides. Add more butter, if necessary. (Use Teflon pan to reduce fat.) Remove chicken to plate. Reduce heat to low. Stir remaining flour mixture into drippings. Add water, bouillon cube and juice of ½ lemon. Stir to loosen brown bits. Return chicken to skillet. Thinly sliced lemons and arrange on top of chicken. Cover. Simmer 5 minutes.

Retreat, Recharge, Relax

I’m back from a retreat, of sorts. A short four-day camping/fishing trip to the high Uintahs. Autumn was but a whisper, as we entered the mountains. Minor splashes of pale tangerine and amber among the willows marking the creek, hints of straw yellow scattered through the aspens, wine red and crimson in the maples. When we were there in June, the snow still capped the high peaks, but it was long gone and vegetation looked dry, but wild asters bloomed pale lavender and the wild roses sported poppy-colored hips as big as my thumb.

It had been a particular tough month and I looked forward to a rest, but I wanted to do some writing work of some kind. My thought was to work on hunting for poems. The camping trips feed the poetry and I needed a break from editing. I didn’t spend much time with that, but I came home feeling a bit rested, with photos and ideas. I consider that a success, given how I work a nd how this last few years have gone.

I do a lot of what I call paper thinking. Writing down doodle words, hunting up words that relate to a poem idea, or even a scene, that I’m not getting crisp enough. The paper thinking helps me. Gets my mind loosened up, my mind wandering, or maybe, analyzing. I’ve done this from the beginning, as a eight-year-old. Yet, all these years later, I forget and start writing like a person walking up hill with all the determination of a angry bear.

I have to remember to stop pushing so hard. Hanna Nyala said it best in Leave No Trace: Keep your nose over your toes. Don’t get your head to far out in front. It puts you out of balance and wears you down. But when I’m focused on the finish I tend to do that, forgetting to enjoy the work (‘cause I do). I forget and get too hard on myself.

I did a little paper thinking while there, along with extra sleep, a break from caring for an elderly parent, photos of wonderful scenery. Although with all the photos I took, I got nothing of the autumn color. Instead, I ended up with a lot of pictures of sunsets. The skies were overwhelming and for some reason spoke to me this trip. It seems so cliche, but I'm trying to trust that I have a reason that I needed pictures of skies at sunset.

We spent several hours one evening on a knoll in the middle of the forest, listening for elk. We were a bit too early in the season, but the silent hours, wind in the aspen (we could hear it coming from three canyons over), the distant thunder, the short bursts of rain fed me just what I needed.

We travel a seventeen-mile dirt (washboard) road to get to the campground. This year we were surprised. The first half of the road had been blacktopped. It made for a smoother, faster drive in. The downside may be more people in the campgrounds, less wildlife. We have enjoyed solitary camping in previous years. We’re not unfriendly, but we do like getting away.

I'm glad to be back and back to writing. I think I needed the break. I think I need to get back to work.

A Writer's Thoughts

This week I persevered. Oh, that word. It is perfect for writers, isn’t it? It is what a writer must do for even the hope, the chance at publication. It makes me smile. It reminds me of the old Indian, Lone Watie in The Outlaw Josie Wales.

I persevere. I write every day. I submit, wait, resubmit. I wait on contest results and keep writing and editing. I observe with focused intent. I eavesdrop on conversations looking for authenticity in my dialogue. I read with my mind not on just the joy of reading, but always with an analytical eye toward the writing. 'I endeavor to persevere.'

The thing is, I do love to write. It seems a paradox that I’m so eager every day to get to my desk and begin. Yet, there, sitting in my nice comfy office chair with all my favorite things around me—books, pens, plants, ink bottles, paperweights, family pictures, cowboy stuff(hey, I’m a collector)— I sometimes begin with all the eagerness of going to my own hanging.

It’s the failure. Nobody wants failure. We’re all afraid of it, but writers kind end up with this expectance for it, this kind of conditioning. We will fail. (The unconscious thinks…so what’s the point) Don’t know any writer who hasn’t had a rejection or two. Mostly, many more than two. We even save the proof of failure, file it away, count each one.

On one hand we need to do that, on the other, it is killing our muse. So, we persevere, but we do persevere. The best of us do anyway.

So... as Josie Wales would ask, 'Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?'

Indiana Jonesing

I don’t really know what I’m doing. This whole editing is a giant leap of faith in myself and—in some ways— the universe. I’m Indiana Jonesing it. Making it up as I go, using all the know-how I can, and right now, I feel like I’ve stepped into the snakes.

Every time Jones got out of a mess, just as he started smiling with satisfaction, something else, something far worse, happened and he ended up in a pit of snakes.

Don’t you just feel that way sometimes? Like you’re making it up as you go? Well, you are. Like you’ve dropped into the pit of snakes? You have.

That has really hit home this last few years and especially these last few months. We may have a lot of education, knowledge, practice and experience in a given situation, but really, it is all new. What once worked doesn’t always work again. What we know, changes. What we plan, falls through.

It’s been a challenge doing my writing in the three hours I have. ( I want more.) Lately, it’s been terrible and all the old problems, problems I thought I had conquered have been just like a dang big stone rolling after me. I’m running just as fast as I can, but that rock is gaining and of course, I know I’m going to trip.

I use to write four hours each weekday (and it wasn’t enough. I wanted more), but as my mother has aged, it seems I end up spending at least an hour each morning checking on her, managing meds, managing some other crisis, working on meals (that being more challenging each month as she steadily loses weight despite racking my brain to combat that. Now, I’m talking about a very vital, healthy ninety-something-year-old) And as frustrating as it may be, I cannot forget that the time and effort I spend caring for her is not infinite. I must cherish what I do have and always remember what is most important.

I just didn’t know that the whispers and demands, the stories that must get out, those ‘voices’, that inspirations will not stop. They will not leave me alone. They will peck and nag and ache, still. They will not be denied. Until put to paper they will not leave me alone, but they will be lost. That is the exquisite torture. And I live with it because I don’t know how not to.

Sometimes it pulls me down. Especially when all the rest of life is pulling, nagging, tripping me. When everywhere I turn, I am lassoed and dragged away. Sadly, I do a lot of kicking and scratching, complaining. What I need to do is hide out, but sometimes you just have to do life.

I didn’t know, I couldn’t know how much it would hurt to be in the constant need to steal a moment or two to write. I knew I was making a conscious decision to put my mother’s needs first, but I’d done it before when my boys were small. I read then, how much writing I could get done while the kids were playing their sports, doing recitals, school assemblies. I chose to be present. I chose to watch. I wanted to be able to talk about what they were doing, how they were doing and, aside for a few illegible notes, I didn’t write during that time. I knew my life with kids would be fleeting. And it was.

I have a similar choice now. I don’t regret the decision I made about my kids. I’m certain I won’t regret the time I’ve spent caring for my mom.

Still, that ache sometimes just hollows me out. I’ve felt stress before, every one of us has. A job that just must get done is interrupted constantly by another equally important thing. That anxiety of knowing you can’t get everything done.

This is worse, this has become painful—like guilt. As if I’m not honoring a gift. It nags and presses and demands. It nips at me worse than an angry spider.

Can I be published working just those three hours? I’m not sure. The only thing I know is that this will change, too. There will be new challenges in the future. Some days I feel like I’ve been dragged over a rough road underneath a speeding truck, but I galloped my horse after that truck and jumped on board, didn’t I? That’s how much I wanted to be a writer. How much I still do. (Remember what my sister told me? “Well, you write, don’t you? That means you’re a writer, doesn’t it?”)

Yes, it does. I’m a writer, therefore, I write.

Simple.

But I wonder if Indiana Jones really just wanted to dig????