Why I Quit RWA

The complete answer to the RWA survey that was sent to me when I did not renew my membership. 

Why should we be in such seperate hast to succeed, 
and in such desperate enterpirses?
If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
 perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, 
however measured or far away.  -Henry David Thoreau

I Am A Writer

Triage: Do the next most important thing. Concentrate on that. This quote has been my motto for the last several years. I wish I knew who said it. I found it scratched across a tiny folded, faded scrap of paper while decluttering my files. Had I needed it before? All I know is it speaks more about my life right now than any explanation I could give.

I’ll spare the details.

I know other writers go through difficulties and still find ways to write. I try. I still write every chance I can, but the chances are woven thick through with the upheaval of my life. Often, I flounder. Writer’s block, though I’ve never believed in it, haunts me. Chaos block, more likely.

And how frustrating that is when, of course, I write, I am a writer. I have always been a writer. I’ve known since I was eight I was a writer. That sounds as if I learned I had some super power and kept it secret. In some ways, that’s true. As a teen, I knew I looked at things differently than my friends. Worse, like many writers I was, also, an introvert and shy. I wore my disguise and I wore it well.

Back in the beginning, back when The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen E Woodiwiss and Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers first appeared on bookstore shelves. I would read twenty or more books a month.  Soon, I set out to fulfill my childhood dream and becoming a published author. I wrote as much as I could knee-deep in cloth diapers and motherhood.

Once my boys were in school, I lowered my standards around the house, used child labor, did whatever I could to write mornings. I could have the writing career I wanted and still stay home to raise my boys. I worked toward my goal with my husband and boys perplexed support. But there was a lot to learn: type, computers, plotting, character development; and life happens.

Life is messy, even cruel, but I kept striving. Through broken arms and computer crashes, through teen love angst and OS changes, through weddings and conferences, through illness and aging parents.  

That was a great time in the industry. The romance genre boomed. Romantic Times came out and had a few pages of instructions and advice for the writer in every issue. Soon after Romantic Times began, Kathryn Falk published How to Write a Romance and Get It Published. I devoured it. Not long after that, RWA formed and produced their wonderful magazine for their members that concentrated on helping romance writers publish. Those first RWR magazines were not the slick magazine we have today, but they covered a ton of material. It still does.

Publishing Now

Here’s the thing. Publishing in romance went from a cottage industry, where novice writers, mostly women, writing at their kitchen tables, got lucky and published. Went from submitting a novel with hope in your heart, to stressing that your synopsis and/or pitch wasn’t perfect. Then it ramped up.
(Don't get me wrong, these writers were good, better than good. They were lucky because they were able to devote all their writing time to writing, research, with just a little promotion.) 

You needed a group to workshop your novel, you needed near perfect editing before you even sent your work out, you needed a platform, which meant you had to make sure you had a media presence, that was ever more unique or eye-catching. The RWR magazine went from helping you with pacing, plot, character to helping with your synopsis, how best to promote, how to manage your social media, what your numbers mean, algorithms on standings, on trends and on and on.

It’s gotten so complicated, not just competitive, that it’s overwhelming. It doesn’t seem any of it is about writing anymore. It doesn’t seem anyone has the time for even some of it. Oh, yes, the best writers, the ones who can still write beautiful, heart-stirring words with all the back noise going on are going to make it. Established writers who have help with research, online presence and promotion are still going to publish.

But wait, there is always self-publishing, right? If possible that is even more time consuming with all its complications and dangers. I can see how all of that is necessary. The ones who have learned to promote, know how to network and don’t mind doing it. The ones who can step up to the new rules for being full members of RWA. The go-getters, the noisy wheel are going to make it. I’m not saying that those wonderful, determined writers don’t run into life too. I know they do.

But we, others, we are of a different breed. We want to write, want to publish, want our words printed for all to see like the others. We just don’t want all the noise. We don’t want to do all the crazy-paced self-promotion, the social media, the networking and the socializing. We don’t have time or money for conferences. We don’t have time to do much more than our beloved writing. So, we write and struggle along with the others, as best we can and we close our eyes to the rest. We pray things change, because things always change. At least, that’s what I do. I have to.

If I look too closely at all the other stuff, I would give up. Give in to the fight I have every day, because I fight giving up enough with the reality of just my everyday life right now. But I’m holding on to my writing, knowing I’ll likely never be published, but I still hold out this little, tiny, bubble of hope because I was born to be a writer, it is the soul of me. This is not something I think, this is something I know.

I understand the world of publishing has likely passed me by and others like me. I recognized the warning sign many years ago when I was dealing with a dose of life. I ranted and railed against it, I cried and grieved. Ranting and railing have no sway with life. I knew. I knew that what was now required of a writer to be published was in all likelihood beyond my capability. Still, I held on to that little grasp of hope, even after they changed membership rules for RWA. I decided, by damn, I’m going to stick it out. Not all’s lost. Not yet. Of course, life laughed and reality whispered in my ear again, that very year. I knew my dreams were mostly dust. They’d been fading for years, because of circumstances beyond my everything, but also because of how the publishing industry has changed. I hung on, but I knew.

RWA is a great organization. It has and continues to help so many struggling, aspiring authors. It helped me. Without RWA, we would certainly be missing a ton of favorite writers who made it, partly by reading RWR. The reader in me is grateful for that.

I use to sit down with the RWR magazine and read it cover to cover. I found brilliant articles, great advice between those covers, advice I use in my writing still. But lately, even those articles have changed and the content now leans more toward that other breed of writer. That is appropriate. There are many more thems than mes. That other breed of writer is having great success and any success helps us all.

For Me, For Now

But I noticed about six months ago, I started avoiding the magazine, putting it in my little pile of must read writer’s magazines like The Writer and Writer’s Digest. I started letting the months stack up. Picking the current issues of one of the other two to read when I wanted a dose of writing how-to.

Reading RWR depressed me. It brought home how far I’ve been left behind, brought home that I could not catch up. No way, not at my age or circumstance. The whisper of quitting would get louder; the sitting at my desk seemed pointless, and I would ask myself again, “why are you wasting your time?” It was getting harder to find the answer until the wonderful, helpful article’s words faded from my memory. The magazine, through no fault of their own, was demoralizing me.

I am a writer. I was born a writer. That is my truth.

I’m saddened, too, because I no longer belong, not even a little to that organization that I joined when it was in its infancy. I see things were stacked against me through no one’s fault and I won’t go into why here either. That’s another essay/blog for another time. I know I don’t belong and truly, when I think about it, I don’t want to be that other kind of writer. I admire them. I even think I envy them a bit. The time and effort they spend on it all, the writing, the revising, the workshopping, the tweeting, the Facebook paging, the blogging, the self-promotion. The time they put into promotion and networking and conferencing. Necessary time. A fact in the climate of the publishing world today. I know that.

Publishing has changed.

In addition, the changes has opened the possibility to publish, made it possible for so many more writers to publish in new and creative ways. That’s a good thing and yet…

I write. I revise. I plot and research. I hope. But I don’t fit in and can’t act as if I do. I don’t do much social media. Conferencing and networking is impossible in my current circumstance. If I could and I won’t go into detail all the ways it’s impossible, I don’t want to. That is not the career I dreamed of when I was in the 5^th grade. It is not the career I longed for when I started writing back in the 80’s when my boys started school. I don’t want to race around promoting, spend hours on the computer getting my name out there or worrying about my status on Kindle.

It’s not as if I haven’t tried. I’ve blogged, might even again. I’m on Facebook. I’ve gone to conferences, I entered contests, I’ve networked. Mostly, I’ve put my butt in the chair, day after day. I’ve taken workshops and classes. I’ve had successes. I’ve published several short stories, a dozen essays, poems. That speaks of me not sucking.

I’m not abandoning what I’m doing, but I’m no longer chasing. I’m consciously exiting the race and I don’t want to read about the shoulds that I cannot manage. I don’t want to see all the new necessaries.  I’m stopping that madness.

I’m saving my writer self. She needs me to do that.

When I began, I wanted to write. Publish, do a few bookstore appearances, then go back to writing. That was the deal.

I think writers like me, and I think there are a whole bunch, because I’m just not that  extraordinary, are not served any longer by all those shoulds. It’s not RWA’s fault. It’s not our fault. The change may very well mean we never publish. We do not conform to the new publishing and writing world.

So we have to have that other reason. The love for the writing for itself.

And hope.  I can keep hoping. I’ll read The Writer and The Writer’s Digest for my inspiration, for instructions, even for a little reality. Those two magazines cover all the kinds of writing, which gives a writer like me, options, gives a writer like me, a few opportunities. I find that these two magazines are not as commercial or narrow-minded. They acknowledges there is reason to write aside from publishing and encourages writers who are different. Yes, they have articles about social media, networking, alternate ways of publishing, etc. but the two subscriptions are cheaper for a year than the dues for RWR.

 For a writer unlikely be published that seems like a sound budgeting. I’ll keep buying those magazines. I’m well aware that the dues for RWA do more than provide a magazine, but these other magazines serve all my writing, not only my romantic novel writing. And they don't have rules for whether I get the full use of them either.

They are a tradition, after all, a gift from my father, in a way, who use to leave those two magazines on my bed each month when I was a teen and my life spread out ahead of me. He encouraged a dreamer, with a heavy dose of reality. He died when I was eighteen.

As with any break up, there has been tears, regrets, the knowledge that there will be things I miss. I will no longer know what new trend is selling in Romance. I won’t get the latest industries statistics. I will no longer stress about the things I not doing to succeed in the Romance genre. I won’t belong to a community of writers that are the most supportive and kind people I know. I will have to work to find a one someone who I can talk writing with.  

The trade-off: I’m going to write. I’m going to write again as I use to. No more must dos, no more worries about all those things besides writing I should be doing during the pocket of time I have. I’m going to write without any regard to what is trending. I’m going to bury myself in the words I love, the worlds I make up. I’m going to write poetry and essays and short stories. I’m going to write with all the joy that writing can bring when not worrying over too many should.

Circumstances might prevent me from working on my romance novels right now, prevent me from publishing ever, but when I do return to writing, editing and finishing my romances, I’m going to do it all from my heart. I’m not going to listen to the must haves or must dos. I’m simply going to write. I may never publish, but I will have the full joy and freedom I had in the beginning.

“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.”
― Joan Didion

                                                                                            

You can miss a place as much as a loved one. That longing can take on an ache deep in your heart just the same. I never thought I’d feel that way about any place but home. I am not a good traveler. I get homesick. I love my home. We’ve put so much into it. I love where I’m comfortable. I feel best with familiar things surround me.

I certainly never thought I’d come to miss the area where my husband loved to camp in the
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Tolerate maybe, never love.

Maybe, because after my first child was born I started seeing danger where I’d never seen it before, or because I lost my father so young and came to realize early on that life was so very fragile, so temporary.

Or maybe, because I get lost at the turn of a corner. Oh, I know exactly where I am. It’s just I don’t know where that is. For me, I go up a trail and when I come back down, it looks completely different. It might just as well be a different country. Actually, I have to face it. I’m lost. And I’m alright with that.

My husband has been taking me to the same place for camping for almost all our vacations. For me, it is always a different place. I’m a cheap traveler because I will never feel as if I’ve seen that, done that. I’m ok with that. I’m ok because I always find something new, something wonderful, or exciting, no matter whether the place is new or not. And always poems find me.

Oh, there was a time I hated going. I did. It was wilderness and frightening, especially being in charge of three little boys four years apart. Camping just seemed to me like I was doing what I did every day only in tougher circumstances. Growing up I had never been on what could be called a real vacation. Our family never went anywhere for more than two days and usually that was to my grandparents in Salt Lake City.

I was determined my boys would love the outdoors like their father. I was determined because I knew it was good for them and important to appreciate the outdoors, the environment. Yeah, I’m one of those. A tree hugger. I’m not radical. I just love animals, love wild and want my kids and theirs to know and love it, too. Even so, when I was stressed, tired and anxious about the terrain, the animals sighted, the ‘green’, the scenery spoke to me. I started looking for ways and things I could love about the place. And I started writing about those things. Poems, and stories, and novels. There was so much to inspire me.

Over the years, I learned to love it. Last year when the doctor told me I couldn’t go to high altitudes, it broke my heart. The campground is over 8000 ft. The trails and favorite spots we like to trek over 10,000 ft. Blood pressure goes up at high altitude, sometimes 20-30 points.

But I got the go-ahead last month. We only had four days. I had to be back for labs. Not enough, but I was going to just feel blessed. It was so good to be gone. Away from phones, internet, computers, caregiving.

It was good to be back, to hear the wind in the quakies, smell the pine, watch the hawks wheel the sky, see stars, breath wild, listen for poems. 

Weaning Off Prednisone

A poem has secrets that the poet knows nothing of. –Stanley Kunitz

I’ve now been weaning off prednisone since March. Slowly, to be sure. More slowly than I want. I’m anxious, impatient. Aren’t we all when we want so much to be ‘normal’? (It’s very hard for us humans to get the idea that there is a new normal, always.)

There have been setbacks. A staph infection in my elbow and of all things, around my fingernails, a terrible cold. Then, a sore hip/back, so I couldn’t keep up my 2 mile walks, (done for health and peace) but what do you do when you walk and get so sore you’re done for the day, or not walk and maybe, be able to go through your day without too much pain. I fought it, which seems to be my MO and then, finally I surrendered again.

I cuss ‘em all and regrouped. I’ve been doing that a lot. I hate it, I’m learning. I’m too dang stubborn. But, bright spot, as I’ve come off the meds. I’ve actually started writing again. Not typing, but working on poetry.

Though of all I write, poetry is the hardest, it is also the smallest and I needed small. Right now, a novel has just too many details to keep track of to work on. And I have several in need of good editing, which I don’t trust myself to do…, yet. So, poetry has been my go to. My salvation, as always.

That and this blog, that no one reads.

Small, concise contained pieces of writing. And I was right; there was something there, something waiting from all the typing I’ve been doing. It was not wasted time. Much of the little shadow work, which is what I call ideas and notes, are producing poems I’m pleased with, poems that are deeper than I once thought they would be, poems that ease my heart, somehow.

Plus, I’ve been having fun. No stress. No rush to get anything done, no pressure applied to self to be published, prove to myself and everyone else that my time has not being wasted. I’ve just been writing and loving it, so grateful for it, just like I use to before I stressed about publishing or trying to earn a little money with my work.

I’ve decided that idea is banned from this computer, this house, this mind. I’m too old to worry about proof, or acknowledgement. What I think of myself is going to have to do. I know I was born to be a writer. I knew it before I was ten years old. Why else do I see things the way I do and always have? Why else have I always notice the things/details  I do, did? I’ve always been an observer—a stand on the sidelines and witness kind of person. (I reminded myself of that scene from Gone With The Wind, where Scarlett is watching everyone dance, but can’t as she is in mourning, but her feet are playing happy. That is me, only it’s my thoughts doing the dance, my body is just fine watching.

Though I’ve always felt a misfit, I love my view and wouldn’t have traded it for popularity or less angst, then or especially now. It’s just me wanting to find the secrets I know nothing of.

What I CAN Do

“Her scar tissue, which she seems to amass both physically and mentally, may not be pretty, but they have become tougher than if she had never been wounded at all.”  -Donna Lynn Hope

Writers are persistent and resilient. They have to be. Cowards and wimps don’t survive. I should have this, right? I’ve always been tenacious, too much so.

Once I’d stopped struggling to move forward, stopped crying and feeling sorry for myself, (It seems I always have to do a bit of that. I hate it. It makes me feel so weak, a crybaby, but the tears always come despite how I fight them. I do wonder if all the wonderful people who face health and life challenges you see in the news because they are so strong and smile in the face of adversity…I wonder if off camera they have their little time of crying and self-pity. I’ve always told myself everyone does. Am I just making myself feel better?) Anyway, after I surrendered to the side effects of the meds and brain fog, I knew I had to regroup. Had to pull it together. Find a way to hold onto my writing, to move forward, to not give up, not tread water.

Move forward.

I had to stop thinking and fixating of all the stuff I couldn’t do. Figure out what I could do. I had to stop thinking about what seemed impossible and concentrate on what was possible.

So….exactly what could I do? What one thing could I still do to move forward with my writing?

When things get tough, how do you move on? How do you keep moving forward when it feels as if a jungle is closing in on you? When roadblocks seemed to turn up every day? Exactly what could I use as my machete? My bulldozer?

I didn’t know. No, ah ha, moment. Ideas were as dull as my head. I fiddled around in my office for a few days, going through papers and files, looking over the novel I had been editing, sobbing a little at all the work I had put into my novels and all the paper. Well, writing creates paper, even when you have most of your writing on the computer. (And just for the record, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been glad of that.) Oh, and I was falling asleep at my desk (side effect of two of the meds I was on) A few more frustrated tears.

What could I do? I couldn’t come up with words or ideas, or inspiration. My mind and heart and whatever quality brought up words, sentences, writing was blank. Worse, everything in me felt dull. Still, there had to be something I could do.

Then it struck me. There were files and files of ideas I hadn’t yet entered into my computer. Pages of ideas in my journals I hadn’t transcribed. I might not be able to come up with anything new. I might be dull and without one ounce of inspiration, but I had shadow work, and notes, and ideas waiting to be worked on. I could get them ready, so to speak, for when I could do what I loved to do again. I could type.

So I typed. I spent six months typing in ideas from magazine tear-outs that had spark a poem or story idea and journal entries into their own documents. I let my fingers fly and I stop worrying about what I couldn’t do, wasn’t getting down. Stopped worrying about what this disruption might be doing to my writing dreams. I just kept typing and telling myself when I was done with the meds and back to my old self I would have all this material, waiting. Kept telling myself I would trust that I was putting in place the start of some wonderful work, that when I could I would gather up everything worth saving and make something worthy. It meant I had to have faith.

 A little voice kept reminding me, it happened before. That first time I battled MPGN. I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten a lot of what I went through. I wanted to forget. I wanted to put it behind me and never think of it again. I didn’t take serious; the chronic part of this disease because I wanted to believe I’d never have to deal with it again. That was just plain dumb of me. Thinking positive is great, but I wished I had had a battle plan from before and a diary, so that some of the things wouldn’t come as such a shock all over again.

Well, this time around, I am writing down the changes in my mind, body, spirit. I’m recording what I did to combat what. I’m making sure I have a battle plan for next time. 

So, Now What?

A bend in the road is not the end of the road…unless you fail to make the turn. –Author Unknown

So, now what?

I was back on heavy doses of prednisone. At first, 20 mg, which didn’t fog my mind, didn’t give me moon face, didn’t ruin my hair, didn’t puff up my shoulders and neck and back. I was so grateful. I was certain I could fight this battle and win quickly. Then, a month later, we got the numbers back from the lab.  Twenty mg. wasn’t cutting it. I’d have to increase the dose. The one positive was, now we knew. When it comes back again, no messing around. We attack with 30 mg.

Along with this news was the news that it would likely take six months to get the lab numbers we needed and then, another six months to wean off the medicine. With prednisone, you don’t just stop.

A year. It seemed like a lifetime.

I tried to write. Between falling asleep at my desk and brain fog I struggled, failed, then stopped. I had to regroup, rethink everything. I gave up the editing I’d been doing, too afraid of losing threads of the novel. My mind was less than sharp, to say the least. I was tired, depressed, fog-brained and feeling very vulnerable.

I hate that.

Ashamed to say, I wasn’t excepting any of this well. There were tears and anger. Frustration seeped through me. I kept asking, why me? Why again?

Truth was we’d been barely holding our own on the caregiving front up to this point. Each week brought more things we had to take over or deal with. All of that was affecting my writing, of course. Oh, hell, my life.

 I was mad…angry…furious. At…at life, at fate, at MPGN and its little dog, too. That was exactly how I felt: Wicked Witch of the West—black-dressed, hand-rubbing, ready to send out the flying monkeys witch. 

I was scared and sad. I felt guilty, too. Caring for my parent was affecting my husband’s retirement. We didn’t dare go anywhere for more than a few days and even then, we needed to check in, at least, once a day. That put boundaries on what we could do, where we could go. Now, my illness was grounded us even more. Grounding us from my husband’s favorite place. Dr. orders, no high altitudes, so no high Uintah camping/fishing, at least for me.

In the scheme of things, none of that was important and yet, it was. To me.

Foremost, was the guilt I felt. My parent, my illness, after all.

Worse still, the one thing I’d relied on to work through stress, emotions, the one thing I always depended on was writing. It had helped me through my youth, my angst-heavy teen years, my father’s too-soon death, kids, railroad widowhood, loneliness, losing pets, raising 3 teen boys, empty nest, caregiving. And I couldn’t seem to hold one thought, word, idea in my mind long enough to type it into the computer. And worse, my mind was dull gray, as creative and sharp as London in the fog. All my creativity lost in muck.

I felt lost and wrong and wronged. Done for. Everything felt ripped away. Yet, that was so, so wrong, too. Because I knew, I was so very lucky. I saw that every single day. There were those who had it so much worse, who were sicker, more desperate, with no support. I couldn’t look around and not know how very lucky and loved I was. I really had no right to be angry or sad, did I?

(Yet, I was.)

How in hell was I going to turn this around?

How was I going to make the most of the next year? And if I was honest, many other episodes through the rest of my life. I didn’t want to waste time feeling sorry for myself or woe-is-meing. I wanted something…maybe, even, everything of the next year to be positive or good. As good as I could make it. It was my life, frustrating as it was.

How could what I learned help others? Goodness knows, there were others going through similar situations? Worse situations. Couldn’t I help someone, somehow? With my voice? With my experience?

Because one thing I learned many years ago was helping someone was the best way to help myself. That didn’t mean I wasn’t charitable or kind. It didn’t mean I was selfish. It just meant I was being proactive. Right?  

Changes

Life happens while you are busy making other plans. –John Lennon

Where I’ve been

Two years ago, I stopped posting. There were many reasons, mostly time and hope. What I hoped was to dedicate time to editing, then have my work professionally edited, then submitting. Time was becoming more precious as the caregiving aspect of my life was getting more and more complicated and involved.

Truth was I felt like I was drowning. I had to try to save myself.

I had to rid myself of my jetsam and flotsam. The blog seemed a bit of a failure, a waste of time. No one would miss it if the blog weren’t there.

Still, it was a difficult choice. Writers are told we need a presence on social media, even before we publish. You know, a ‘platform’ but I find that is a double-edged sword. Social media is great but it is a time thief and maybe, even a big waste of time. I’m not sure. 

Besides, hope of publishing was shriveling a little more everyday. Every writer’s magazine I read, every change to the publishing world vs mine took me farther and farther away from that goal.

Oh, plenty of writers become successful in part because of their attention to social media. But time is time. How did I want to spend mine?

When I started the blog, I thought the journey I was on might help someone else. I like the idea of helping another writer, like me. You know, some someone dealing with caregiving, illness and trying to be a successful writer.  After all, the journey of caregiving and illness is universal, right? Throw in trying to have a little writing success—I was navigating obstacles and pitfalls. Learning. My mistakes and successes with all three battlefronts—maybe, I could help one someone else.

I could not deny writing the blog did help one person-me. That wasn’t a bad thing, but maybe, that time had passed.

Before I began writing my blog, I did look for other blogs about caregiving and writers, about MPGN and writers, about side effects of prednisone and writing. I found nothing. I could have used the help, the experience of someone dealing with those things. So why not? There had to be others like me. Fighting similar battles. Others living/struggling with chronic illness, caring for an aging parent, trying to write and have a little success. Maybe, my blog could help, maybe….

I began the blog. I enjoyed writing it. I blessed my son for the suggestion and help. I kept at it, despite the small following— until—I couldn’t help anyone anymore. Because I was floundering. Floundering to find things to write about. Floundering under the changes in publishing and other things.

And then some things…the caregiving things suddenly became impossible to share. Too private, too heart hurting. And that, stymied other things. It became another battle. I could not find the wherewithal to defend another front.

So, I stopped.

I missed it. A little less each week. I took the time and made huge strides with my Work in Progress. I started to feel a bit hopeful again. My disease was under control, had been for six years. I felt good. Able to handle the caregiving (the emotion and family drama, not so much), though it was getting more involved and complicated.  I worked on poetry in small pockets of time, which fed my soul, took some classes and spent time on fun and family. I felt I’d made the best decision.

So, Here We Go Again

Of course, the bottom fell out. My disease flared, which really took me off my feet, emotionally. Why I don’t know. I was well aware there would be flare-ups, that I would never be cured, that the disease would progress. Yet, even knowing that, deep down, I must not have believed it. I must have thought/wanted that none of that would happen. Not to me. (denial 101, ya think?)

The one good thing was there were no symptoms. I didn’t feel sick, just a little tired, but I was caring for an elderly parent, a home, husband, two cats, a dog, a yard.

The worst part is the cure. I wanted to cry when I saw the lab results. I did. Dr. directions: Prednisone for six months and another six-month weaning off period. I wanted to shake my fist, yell at…something.

Dealing with the side effects of prednisone again sent me into a down ward spiral of depression. Yet, as my Dr. and Husband reminded me, (damn ‘em) it was much better than dialysis. I should be thankful. And I was. Truly. And frustrated. And angry. I wanted to rail and rant. (I did) I was thankful we caught it early. And depressed and angry and sad. So many emotions flooded me, I couldn’t hold on to a one.

Worse of all, I knew what that medicine would do to my writing. (and hair, and face, and body)

As if the main line tap has been turned off. Nothing comes. Nothing. Blank. I can analyze while on prednisone, so you’d think I’d be able to continue the edits, but I was afraid. The creativity part is so gone and without it, what could the just analytical part do to my work? And my memory was shot. How could I keep the threads of a novel together? Could I lose what is unique about my writing? Would I take a chance of losing the best of my work? I just couldn’t take that chance.

Of course, about this same time things went a bit south on the care of my elderly parent front. Stress (or as my Dr. explained, how I handled stress) exacerbates my disease. This was not good.

 (Another ‘side effect’ was how vulnerable I felt, anxious and vulnerable. How much of this was the medicine? How much was just the return of this illness?

My writing would be derailed. For over a year? Stopping writing again would kill me. I was depressed enough. I wasn’t as sick this time. We’d caught it early, so I wasn’t sleeping all day, barely able to function. I had to keep busy, work at something. Something for myself.

I had to fight—I had to Do something.

I wasn’t sure what. I floundered. I’ve floundered before, but not like this.

(Finally, I surrendered—so I could fight.)

For the last eight months or so, I’ve been on a journey, fighting battles. It’s not the same journey I traveled before. I don’t really know what I’m doing. The battles are different, my response more complicated. I’ve floundered, and sunk and risen. I’ve failed and railed, crawled up, slipped down. I’ve learned some stuff. A whole lot of stuff.

I got my fight back.

Sometimes

On good days.

So, now what?

Lists:

I love lists. Many of my entries in my writer’s journal are lists.

I have lists of words I love, words I use too often, words I don’t know the meaning of, new words, favorite words to say, to read…just favorite words, good words, bad words. (I love bad words, they’re so…descriptive.)

 I keep lists of descriptive words, color words, action words, tag words, landscape words, plant words, texture words, scent words, emotion words.

I make lists of places to go, where I’ve been, stores to check out, character names, books to read, authors to check out, books I’ve read, books to buy and a favorite: lists of quotes. Lists of book quotes, writing quotes, garden quotes, encouragement quotes, pet quotes and just plain quotes.

Lists of wants, needs, wishes, to dos, dones, priorities, bills, titles or ideas for projects, projects, flowers and seeds to buy and grocery lists.

Memory lists, lists of things I need to include in each new writing project, lists that end up poems. All these lists end up in my journal in a nice vertical way with a bullet point at the beginning of each new line. The sight pleases me, eases my mind that I’m somewhat in control of all the chaos in my writer’s mind.

Lists organize my life, keep me straight on my tasks for the day, what I need to buy, what I need to write, research, things I need to think about, things I need to include in a piece I’m wirting. Lists help me push my mind to think of more, better, most important.

Lists jump starts my writing day, whether I use a list from my journal or make a new one.

I love to scratch off chores or groceries as I put them in my cart, titles I’ve used. No smart phone for me. I want the paper, the pencil, the line drawn across the page. I want simple, available, physical.

Lists are among my best writer’s tools and fit perfectly in my writer’s journal. 

Writing Journal: Finding Detail

I’m reading along, enjoying a book, the description, the dialogue, the plot, then the writer does something that grabs me viscerally, snags my gut, or heart, or the base of my throat…Then,  he/she does it again and again, until I’m there in that scene.

That writer has me…for as long as he keeps writing, if he never forgets that one thing: Detail.

Small, perfect details that crack open a scene or emotion. Details that have me whispering to myself, yes, that’s real, that’s exactly what that feels like, looks like, is. I know that, I’ve felt that, I’ve heard, smelled, tasted that, exactly. Or, I’ve never felt that, tasted that, smelled that, but now I know what it’s like and I’ve lived this other life.

Isn’t that why we read?

However, details can be hard to come by. I know. I’ve been trying to get the little details into my current book as I rewrite because there are places that feel flat. But how do I go about finding details about the old west when my life and experience is far from that? Oh, I can imagine, but I need to know, but that isn’t enough.

How do I turn my observations into enough, the just right ones? What details can I truly research? What do I have to find out for myself?

What I’ve figured out is I wish I’d done a better job of keeping my writer’s journal. There are good reasons why I didn’t, but now, I need to pull out faded memories in search of details from those busy years when my boys were small. When I was dragging them to museums, nature workshops, scouting events and I need to pluck those memories from moments I was just trying to keep track of three boys, keep peace, keep sane.

Research helps, but only so much, so re-experience has become the best I can do. Even then, the writer’s journal is crucial, because some details are so fleeting. Sometimes observations go by too quickly, my notes too vague and general. Being specific when you are moving through an experience is difficult. I’ve found that’s ok, if you write briefly and include a list of observations and quick impressions.

I’ve had to teach myself to do this and often, the way I do it in my journal is with haiku and lists. I remind myself to pay attention, think small. Think specific. Think specific to what the POV character experiences, notices. 

So, I'm trying to use my journal. To write in it every day. I'm trying to spend more time noticing the little things in my day. I'm looking, feeling, smelling...living with attention.

Crochet/Cross-stitching a Story

I grew up surrounded by women whose hands were never idle when they watched TV or ‘relaxed.’ My mother was a wonderful knitter and sewer, my best friend’s mom crocheted and embroidered, my grandma did every kind of handwork: knitting, crocheting, embroidery, cutwork, cross-stitch. Needlework was required for the girls in our church starting at the age of twelve. I was pitiful at it, too impatient and then, too ashamed by my finished project, a pitiful mess, from the stamped cross-stitch sampler to the crocheted purse to the knitted covered hanger, to want to ever try again.

Later, when my friends and I started filling hope chests I revisited needlework. I’d learned patience, at least a bit. (I’ve since learned, patience is an ongoing skill a person never completely masters.) It was my brilliant idea that for birthdays and Christmas we’d exchange things for our hope chests, preferably homemade. And it was a great idea, at least, I’ve thought so over the years.

What a wonderful thing that all these years later I still have tea towels and dresser scarves embroidered by childhood friends (some of which I haven’t seen since) as I began married life. I still have stacks of tea towels and pillowcases, so I never truly forget these wonderful friends. And it got us to learn handwork and figure out that hand-made things are the best gifts.

About this same time, I registered for a homemaking arts class for my senior year of high school. At the time I had no idea how much this class would help me find a safe, soft place to land every day in a hellish year. That year was profound for me. I lost my father and spent much of the year lost and adrift. I worried about my mother and found myself helping her make some pretty adult decision. That hour a day of quiet and discovering the importance of being still and doing something physical but intent like handwork centered me, saved me.  

Over the years, I’ve come to depend on handwork to work through problems in my own life or in my writing. More, I’ve come to appreciate how the slow progress of one row of crochet after another, over time, makes a whole afghan. One cross-stitch at a time ends up with a sampler worthy of hanging on my walls. That knowledge helps me face the daunting beginnings of a novel with less fear. I know word upon word makes a sentence, makes a paragraph, makes a chapter. I know little steps matter, maybe, more than big steps, and I’ve learned faith in my own ability to stick with something.

I’ve crochet over ninety afghans for family and friends. I’ve crocheted them one little stitch at a time. I’ve cross-stitched countless samplers, one cross-stitch at a time. I’ve struggled with difficult patterns, unpicked mistakes, changed my mind about color choices. Each stitch has pulled, dragged, helped me through bad times, good times, times of stress, worry and plenty. Each stitch has blessed me ten times over as I’ve learned patience, determination, tenacity, starting over, redoing, perfecting. The exact skills I need for writing. 

Patience in Piecework

“It’s an old-fashioned cure for restlessness, my dear, in case you ever need it. Remember that it has been successful for hundreds of women. I’m no fool, am I? Well, I haven’t traveled without my tapestry since my girlhood, and you should see the splendid suites of furniture covered by my handiwork, testimonials to worries of all sorts. Whenever I have felt nervous, vaguely dissatisfied, irresolute, or frankly wretched, I have sat by myself. Each embroidery contains hundreds of stitches which are cross-stones of sorrow, the death beds of boredom. In many a gaily flowered seat, my happiness lies buried. People spend time and money being exorcised; psychoanalyzed, they call it, seeking relief for body and soul. I think that a good long mechanical task that requires a minimum of attention, and the soothing action of the hand as it dips over and under the canvas, is the very best means of pinning down our weaknesses and chloroforming them. Stitch the horrors down, my dear, and they shan’t return to plaque you; they are killed by the stab of the needle. Of course, during peaceful intervals, I have laid my work away for months, but when I need it, there it is, as convenient as a box of aspirins against a cold.”

—Anne Green, 16 Rue Corta Bert

   I found this quote in an old Peg Bracken book. I didn’t note which one when I copied it down in my writer’s journal and I’ve read them all. (I absolutely love Peg Bracken, even though she was a bit before my time (the 60’s) I was a teenager reading cookbooks/humor/housekeeping books. Needless to say, I was a strange teenager.) The sentiment in the quote spoke to me. More so in recent years, but down through the years the act of handwork or piecework, as they called it, has soothed me, paced me through worrisome nights of childhood illnesses, teen drivers, those many nights of a railroad widow/young mother and later—now, as a patient and a caregiver.

Doilies, afghans, hot pads, tea towels, samplers accent my home. Countless hours of handwork, but somehow, each item is more. A legacy, too, of my life, my mother, her mother, my best friend, Connie’s mother, of that generation and earlier generations. Of time spent in meditation, so to speak.

 I can’t pass by the handiwork at antique shops or fairs. I stop, inspect, marvel, covet. I know the work involved because I’ve done it, but more, I know the soul, hope and sorrow ‘pinned’ to each piece. There is history stitched along with skill and time. I love the vintage look but more, I love the story behind each piece, even without knowing the exact story details.  I know the story of my own handwork, and part of the story behind my mother’s, her mother’s, Connie’s mother.

I didn’t start out loving the hobby. I didn’t have the patience and maybe, that’s the thing with needlework. It takes patience. To learn the skill, execute the patterns, to finish the project. It doesn’t happen overnight but it teaches principles that I’ve used in every part of my life, but never so much as in my writing.

Gifts (11/25/2013)

We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. –Marcel Proust

It’s no wonder my mom and I became best friends. Friendships grow from shared experiences and circumstances, shared location and shared interests. We had all three. I was the only one still left at home when Dad died. I went through Dad’s illness along with Mom.

And after, while Mom was dealing with her own grief and fear, she had a daughter she had to look out for. I imagine that was an added worry and a gift.  I remember the first night after Dad died, my sister and brother went home with their spouses. I went home with Mom.

The house was so still as we lay together in the bed Mom had shared with Dad so many years. Neither one of us was willing to spend the night alone. Neither of us could sleep. Mom talked me down into sleep with whispered instructions I still remember. “Just relax your toes, sweetie. Concentrate on your toes. Now, your feet.”

I don’t remember what body part she reached by the time I fell asleep, but I remember the relief of that sleep. I was eighteen; she was fifty. Too young to face the next few weeks, the labyrinth of insurance, survivor’s benefits.

We couldn’t help but cling together a bit. I know I felt adrift, school was a blur and I sure didn’t feel like joining the Christmas doings there. I wanted to stay home, lick my wounds. And frankly, I was a little afraid to leave my mom in the house alone.

There was stuff to go through, decisions to be made, meals to fix, life to muck through. 

I was a rebellious teen, still, and ready to spread my wings and she was a little lost. I wish I had understood more…about everything. I didn’t. But life eventually brought us to the same place, circumstances, of sorts and we’d always had the same interests.

Like every other set of parents, ours gave us kids’ gifts. Do your best, take good care of your teeth, don’t leave home with dirty underwear-you never know when you might get in an accident, pretty is as pretty does, be polite. The two I appreciate most, are the love of music and the love of reading.  But Mom gave me three other gifts almost as important; gardening, cooking and needlework.

How could I know these five gifts would define me, save me and heal me?

Time

Time

Time has been the thing I struggle with the most. I dare to bet it is that way for most writers. We all fit our writing time between very complicated lives. I never expected or wanted to write ‘full time,’ but I have longed for a few quiet hours a day with no distractions.

No, I am not delusional…You know, that statement most likely doesn’t make sense when you factor in that I am talking about a writer. Writers work in delusion, right? Anyway, I digress.

I really thought, when I began my writing, a million years ago, that I could find those few quiet hours. After all, I nurtured, nursed and guided three boys to school age and I was blessed with being a stay-at-home mom. It was the perfect situation. While the boys were at school, my husband working on thirty or more hours, off twelve, I could spend mornings writing, afternoons keeping house, fixing meals, running the boys to their extracurricular activities.

Here it is, twenty some odd years later, and the best I can say is it did not go according to plan. I know, I know. I was to get out the message that I worked in the mornings and was not to be disturbed. I got the message out. I know, I know. I was not to answer the phone, the door, the cell. Done, at least most days. I was to put butt in chair. (If you look at my south end, you know I did that.) Every book, every article on writing tells you this. Heck, I can see that you must do these things. I am a firm believer in ‘don’t wish for it, work for it.

What no one tells you is how to get up, get those kids off to school, sit your butt in the chair when the person supporting the family and your writing has an on call job and the phone rings at two in the morning. How to balance all those little sticky problems that come up with family, neighbors, finances, difficult delivery companies or repair companies who no longer seem to accommodate the customer. No one tells you just how little your family, friends, neighbors take you that seriously. After all, you are home all day.

(Frankly, I really think the whole concept of writing, whether fiction or not, is hard for ‘civilians’ to get. It is hard to see the difference between sitting down to write and sitting down to ‘write.’)

I can’t even begin to say how angry I was for many of those first few years. At my family for not respecting my space, my writing, my wishes. (Guilt involved.) At someone reading my work that wasn’t ready for ‘other eyes.’ At the computer…acquiring one, learning to work it, relearning new technology, crashes, lost work. I was making myself crazy. I had so much to learn with the writing, the computer, the way publishing worked.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I told my husband that it would be so much easier to just give up.

And…unfortunately, time has only gotten more complicated. I have more blessings, more titles: Wife, Mom, daughter, sister, grandma, caregiver for a breast cancer survivor and 90-something parent…chief cook and bottle washer. The list does go on, but you get the idea. 

And now, worse…It seems writers have more shoulds. They should Facebook, printerest, twitter, blog, goodreads, keep up with their favorite writers, blogs, network, promote and keep up with all the new ways of being published.

I don’t know how the writers do it. I really, truly don’t. And have a life.

At one time, I let this get me down. I’m realistic; I know I can’t do it all. I really can’t. And more, I don’t want to. When it’s all said and done, when I peel back everything but what I want to do, it’s simple. I just want to write. And have my sweet, little life. Maybe, that will be, is my downfall, too.

Yes, I want to be published, but some of this other stuff writers should do just seems like lint on velvet. White noise, busy work. I hate busy work.

I want what I want. And when I really look at the other side of it, because writers love to read, I want my writers, writing.

It’s true. It’s wonderful that I can contact the writer of my latest read, tell him how much I loved his book, read his blog, find out what’s happening with him any minute on twitter.

I’ll bet a writer loves to hear what a reader thinks of their book. I even feel compelled by a good read to send a writer that message, but new world of promotion has its price. The price is time

Clear back, all those twenty-something years ago, I made choices about my writing vs. my life. Maybe, those choices are the very reason I’ve not published a novel yet. I would hope not because my life always comes first. No, I think I needed those years to learn how to write, how to live. I wouldn’t change the life I’ve had or the time I’ve spent with loved ones (they are temporary, you know), but time just keeps stacking up behind me. Some of my choices now, are no choice at all. I am in the care giving for the long haul and for that to end means losing my parent, so that is what it is. I’m getting older, so life to, has a little more say on my time, too. I have to make more painful choices.

I’m going to be stingy with my time. I’ll spend most of my writing time, writing. Blogging and Facebook sparsely. It’s what I want my favorite writers to do, too. That’s what I want to do. That’s why I began that journey, all those years ago. 

Upgrade

If you do not get it from yourself, where will you go for it? –Alan Watts


I have to apologize for neglecting this blog. I had no intension of not writing. I value those few who followed me. Love writing the blogs, but lately…No, let me be truthful. It’s been since August 13 that I’ve written a blog. Before that, quite honestly, I was slowing down, running out of things to blog. I was getting bored…so of course, I was likely boring.

Well, even that’s not the complete truth. Frankly, I was running out of things I wanted to be honest about.

And there it is. Honestly. I’ve always tried to be honest in my writing. (Hey, a saint I am not.) I like the honest writer, warts and all, respect them, want to be one. Even when things get a little ugly, hard, sad, tough. In fact, I think that’s what I like reading best…and I suspect so do most readers. I want to write honest…except….I’m so private, painfully shy and come from a family that is the same. And the years since I started the blog have been riddled with life unexpected.

 Actually, the blog started from just that. So much of what was happening in my life, I felt like I had to be careful about what I said. After all, some of those involved might read it…might misinterpret what I said and take offense. The exact thing that so many writers writing memoirs run into. And I just wasn’t sure how to approach the more touchy things.

 I started the blog after recovering from MPGN, a kidney disease that I thought was going to do me in. It didn’t, but during the illness I got scared about dying and as I recovered I got even more scared about my writing. It seemed lost. I’ve written many, many (ad nauseam, truly)times of all that, but what I didn’t write about—the before that continued during and continues still. Caregiving…husband’s retirement, age, frustration, anger, rejections, fear, guilt. Oh, I’ve touched on the subjects, but…It’s difficult, private and complicated. It’s the underbelly of my writing.

 I made a decision to be up, to always grin and bear it, to be positive. And I stand by that decision still, but I think going forward I’ll try to write in a more honest way. After all, I’m still here, still writing, still caregiving, getting older, frustrated, angry, sometimes. And I still fear all the same stupid things. That’s a positive, right? And besides, I’m betting that there are more writers out there like me than writers that are never scared, never frustrated or anger, who have not a care in the world.

 First, the apology to those who read this blog, if there are any left. There weren’t many anyway, but I’ve purposely and quite abruptly stopped writing my weekly/twice weekly blog. It likely came as no surprise, as the blog posts were not up to snuff, in my view and had fallen off in frequency, too. I know this happens to blogs all the time. The blogger has moved on, changed, time problems come, boredom comes. Life happens, in other words.

But I’m still in this. I’m still frustrated by: by a frail elderly mother whose memory sometimes takes me down the rabbit hole with her, a husband who tries, really tries but thinks he is the exception to that rule: she’s writing, don’t bother her unless there is fire, blood or water. Sons who need babysitting help, advice, a shoulder and my mother-instinct kicks in and their needs come first. And of course, there is the needed down time, housework—I don’t have help-meals, shopping—life. But…truth of the matter, these are my blessings, too and I know it. These are the same things every other writer is dealing with. And I know that, too. There may be health issues, divorces, money issues, but we all have similar stories and I think, I hope other writers can get something from hearing about mine, still.
 • I’ll also start blogging about books I’ve read again. I’ll be recommending books I like. If I can’t say something nice about a book, I won’t say anything at all.
 • There will be recipes. I eat, therefore, I cook but more importantly, I read a lot of cookbooks. I read them cover to cover like a novel. I love cookbooks and it is just one of the things I collect with a passion. I’ll recommend those I love that have something that makes them worth owning. If I try a recipe and like it, I’ll write a post with the recipe. If I tweaked it, I’ll write about that. I tweak a lot of recipes. I have a huge collection, but my absolute favorite recipes are those that are easy. Easy is perfect for other writers, right? I mean other writers are trying not to starve, trying not to let their love ones starve. I love to cook(we all have to eat), but not if it interferes with that chapter I can finally finish. So simple, easy is good and something to pass on. Just another thing that I hope will help other writers, but if it helps moms, readers and anyone else, so much the better.
• I’ll post about any new thing, idea or book that helps me in my writing.
• I’ll post about ‘finds’. Down time includes antique malls and swap meets.
• I’ll post a little about my dog because that is another reason my blog posts have dwindled to nothing. New puppy, lots of training. I’m three months into potty training (that’s gone perfectly, knock wood), basic command training which includes heeling on our daily two mile walk. (Only tripped once. I no longer bounce, but I survived.) She’s got sit and down. We’re working on stay. She sleeps by the desk while I work.  Which is where I need her. She fills the void left by the dog before her and…there has always been a dog before her.

Making Room for Life

It is said, by many experts, published authors, agents, editors, publishers that what you put into your writing directly affects whether you are published or not. I, myself, believe” Don’t wish for it, work for it.” I learned early that I was never going to be one of those people that things come to easily. (Truth is that is just an impression anyway, a way we see things. We all have our struggles, many of which can not be seen by others, but often we suppose that if we haven’t seen it, it didn’t happen. Believe me, that’s not true.) Frankly, I figured this out quite young and yet, still, sometimes I’d ask myself why things seemed so easy for some. Well, you know, that pity party we all succumb to on occasion. Or is that just another of my flaws? Anyway, I’ve been rolling up my sleeves and doing things myself for so long: when I loved the look of my friend’s house with all the homemade afghans and doilies her mother had made scattered around, I knew that if I wanted that homey, homemade look, I’d have to do the crocheting, or if I wanted a pretty garden, I’d have to do the learning, planting, upkeep. And when my husband started working for the railroad I knew that, in many ways, I would be a single mom raising three boys on my own, mostly. I’ve always been ok with that because I love teaching myself things (I’m not too good with joining, group things, etc. I’m somewhat of a loner, enjoying silence, my own chosen music, and schedule and thoughts more than most of my friends and family. I seek quiet, alone space. It feeds me and my writing and my peace.) I love little boys, I loved teaching my kids, training my dogs, teaching myself, learning, learning, learning. I explain this because when the writing is tough, not going so well, or interrupted, tripped up and all those other things that fall upon the progress of writing, I tend to bow my head, get determined and try to plow on through. I tend to avoid necessary interruptions such as illness, appointments, family obligations, though if any of that is connected with my elderly parent or kids or husband or pets I do it willingly. So, of course, what I’m saying is I don’t always take care of my needs as I should in order to get in my writing time. I put off things I need, want so I can do my due diligence to the love of writing. In short I forget to live. I love to write. I want to put my best into it, so I forget, sometimes, there will be nothing inside to write about if I don’t take the time to just live. But life is funny, isn’t it? I’ve been so missing the one next t o me, day and night, the one who followed everywhere I went, the one who walked with me every day, brought me the remote, the phone, my trowel, a ball, a bottle, the one who watched over me while I fought kidney disease and railroad widowhood, who listened to my primary caregiver woes and worrying about the kids woes, and loneliness, the one at my feet while I wrote and listened to passages without more than a tilt of the head. I’ve been blue and off balance for months. I wanted to fix that but held back. The work, the training, my age…was I up to it? And more importantly, was my life, as it is now, up to it. Things happen and help for my elderly parent has slowly gotten to be less, as my parent’s needs are becoming more. I’m no spring chicken and time is running out for me to make a mark as a writer. Maybe, that’s all I should concentrate. Maybe, that’s all I should ask of myself, my husband and my life. Still, the spot near my feet has been empty and that emptiness echoes, echoes, echoes hollow. I agonized over getting another dog and then life and serendipitous opportunity and a sweet little puppy changed all that and I’m ankle deep in puppy, training, poop-scooping and laughs. Funny thing is this: I’ve had to spend many minutes outside waiting for the puppy to go to the bathroom, middle of the night waits, mid-morning waits, interruptions to writing time or training time over-lapping into the same. I’ve been so busy with it all, I’ve not seen a whole newscast, but I’ve heard the wind through the cottonwoods out back. Barely get the paper read so I know little of what’s happening or not with congress, the senate, terrorists, immigrants, the Kardashians. I don’t care. Don’t miss it a wink and I’ve seen the sky freckled with stars and gossamer clouds, seen geese fly toward the pond behind our house on silent wings loud enough for a puppy to hear, heard doves coo of love, smelled puppy breath and played in the sprinklers. I’ve taught sit, come, a name and smiled and smiled and smiled. But more surprising is I’ve written in blazes of glory words, words pouring from me, raining on to the page as fast as I can type. New stories, old rewrites, poems coming fast and sweet and good. My voice has become more natural, easy and soft. I’ve become more myself, relaxed, balanced. Yes, there is so much more to do, but so much more I’m able to do. It’s been as if I’ve awakened from a sleep. Am I still scared about some of those worries I had? Like what happens if my parent’s health gets worse, or my illness returns. Yes, but I can’t do anything more than live each day and I certainly shouldn’t make my life smaller. That doesn’t serve me, my writing or the life I am living.

Writing Integrity

I read each new issue of the Writer, Writer’s Digest and RWR cover to cover, feeding on the advice, those gems of wisdom from writers far more experienced than I do—published writers, writers who give workshops, write how-to books for writers. I’ve been doing so since high school many decades ago. I still have yellowed pages torn from old issues. The magazines gave me my degree in writing, such as it is. The magazines where a consistent teacher was always available when I was, supportive even when the idea of success was buried beneath diapers, housework and railroad widowhood.

I would say I have a doctorate in writing advice, if time spent, advice taken, practiced and improved counts for anything. Times have changed, though. Publishing has changed. Making money from writing has changed. Writers have had to change their approach. Lately, a lot.

We can blame the internet for much of that change. Of noted interest and maybe, worry/ second thoughts, not just for writers but for our children was Internet Brain by Hillary Casavant in August 2013 issue of the Writer.

I’ve found advice is a funny thing. You can read it, take it but it’s the timely advice that sinks in and takes hold. In this same issue (August issue of the Writer) another article sank in deep and got me thinking— Separation Anxiety by Julie Krug. Krug wrote about writing or the inability to during times of trouble, pain, illness, sorrow. You know—life.

I’ve gone through my own troubled times where writing was impossible, where illness, family needs, grief, disaster has sidelined my writing and I see more of it in my windshield. If you’ve read my blog you know, I’m primary caregiver to a ninety-six year old parent, which is something I have to knit my writing around. Without a doubt, that will change to something else. Something I know will challenge the flow of my writing, even more.

Writing is challenging at any time, but I’ve found having writing integrity has helped. What is writing integrity? For me, above all, it’s being honest with myself, being kind to myself and having in place several plans for those tough-spot times. Go-to measures I can reach out, almost with second nature to keep my heart, mind and hands in the writing.

My go-to plan when actual writing would be impossible. When grief, illness, disaster turns my world and work upside-down: Read, read fiction, read writing advice, write poetry, read poetry, watch movies that pluck at emotion, take notes of what I want to write, journal, draw or paint, take pictures, research, heal, take care of myself, give myself time to gain balance and perspective, find a listener, be a listener, do something kind for someone, for myself, spend time with my dog, cat, garden, play music from my youth, rest, walk.

I keep this list in an emergency file along with prompts, ideas, articles for writing emergencies.



I’ve had to learn to do this. Learn what it takes to hold me close to writing and not let that dream all spin away. In the process, I’ve learned how strong I really am, even when I’m not certain that I am. I’ve learned what supports me, what I need and how to ask for it, what gets my writer’s mind going. It’s not been easy to learn. I’ve had to try and fail, hang on with tooth and nail, pay attention to what actually works, what doesn’t.

When I started back writing after my illness, I struggled to get back into the work I left half-down, deserted. For one, it just frustrating and heartbreaking to see what I thought was the finishing up of a book was in disarray. Worse was, I just couldn’t get back into it. I was so anxious to start working again, but my mind was still affected by medication. I was overwhelmed with the idea of backtracking before I could go forward. I didn’t have the energy to do it and worse, I was so afraid I’d lost the ability. (That was one of the worse parts about the illness-that fear. I felt so much like I’d lost a part of myself)

Thankfully, I found poetry could be my entry into writing. I always had been. I just didn’t realize it. I had to learn that for myself. So I learned to: Be purposeful. Trust time. Trust that, if I was a writer I would have to come back to it. I’d have no choice. I had to trust that I was a writer and that had nothing what so ever to do with what had been published or bought.

I think now, that time of crisis, that time of doubt and trying to find my writing again was the best thing for my writing. It has made me appreciate every word I write. It makes me anxious to get to my desk. It makes me fight through every kind of block and fear.

So, let there be tears, false starts, garbage on the page. It’s hard. It’s gonna be hard. It will always be hard, ‘cause the thing is, troubled times don’t end or go away. They just are. Muscles atrophy, even writing muscles. So, each time I stumble or get shoved off the road, I start again—small. With one word, one sentence, even if I have to steal it from someone, somewhere else. And I do steal. I claw, I write. I live and write some more. My heart breaks, I write. The first thing I think about in the morning is writing. Something wonderful happens I don’t text, I write.

Return from Yellowstone

Getting back into the swing of things since returning from vacation has been difficult. The pile on my desk discouraging, most of all. The thought of tackling all the bits and pieces I brought back littering my desk is as bad as the flowerbeds needing attention. But if I’m to treat my writing seriously, I have to treat it like any other job and get to it.

I only himed and hawed a little, after all, most of the piles were writings or pictures I took to use for prompts for poetry I began while vacationing. (Plus a huge stack of books) That’s the thing with a writer. They really don’t have an off switch. Lucky, my husband finally realizes this and facilitates my crazy mind. It’s the criminal scenarios I imagine that can get to him. See, there is always more going on in a situation than meets the eye. Usually nefarious. Anyway, in my writer’s mind.

My poor husband never imagines anyone having some kind of ulterior motive, never thinks someone would do anything untoward to him…until I bring it up. I think this is so because he’s so nice and would never think of doing anything bad to anyone. He just doesn’t have a devious mind or a mind that wonders of motives, sees stories behind everything.

I digress…the desk…my desk…I can finally see the top. I’m ready to get back into my writing, my edits. I’ve filed all my notes, downloaded my pictures, organized a portable poetry workbook I’ve been wanting to do, put away the wonderful books I found in West Yellowstone ( all in one section of The Book Peddler. I could have spent all day and a fortune there, but I limited myself to the Women in the West section.) I’m doing this blog and did get my picture done.

Oh, wait, I didn’t write my news: just before I left for vacation, I got word I was one of eight finalists in the PNWA Literary Contest for my poem: Songbird. I tend to put entries out of my mind, so as not to obsess over them. The phone call took me by surprise. I’m still shocked…tickled…shocked…pleased and shocked.

I’m actually excited to get back to work on my book though, and…hesitant. I’m so hopeful for this book (and series) and afraid it won’t be all I want it to be. But, just like tackling my messy desk, I begin…one little step at a time.

By the way, got to go horseback riding while I was gone. Something, I sure wanted to do again before I no longer could.

How soon can I go again?

 

I’ve read the advice, on both writing and caregiving. Advice on the two is often contradicting, impossible, guilt producing. The truth is it lulls me slowing into a funk.


I don’t want to say depression, though, mainly because that has become another word that makes me feel guilty, lost, wrong and (shhh, whisper, you didn’t hear it from me) depressed. As I read this advice, I mentally go through the day-to-day tasks for my elderly parent. I try to juggle this while I cling to my writing, manage a home, attempt to be a decent grandma, wife to a retired railroader( yes, believe it or not that is a bit different than 9-5 workers because old habit die hard and he’d never had a work schedule). It’s had to find time to write, research, rewrite, fill the well, overcome an overscheduled mind with many schedules to take into account (my mother’s doctor visits, drug/insurance schedule, yard care, house cleaning, as well as my own, plus husband’s). It nearly impossible to find time for myself for things such as, exercise, diet, down time to do the other things I love enough to be mentally good at all the aforementioned stuff, such as gardening, antiques, photography…Well, and etcetera.

It is impossible. I can’t do it. I’m not stupid. I’m a realist, but I am also—a dreamer.

I’ve been managing as a railroad widow for 30 something years. What that meant: I never knew when my husband was going to work; he/I/the family had an hour and a half for him to get ready for work that would take him away from home for at least thirty-six hours. It didn’t matter if we were in the middle of a plumbing crisis, dinner, concert, soccer game. We couldn’t afford for him to miss work. That would likely be fourth of his paycheck if he did. So, everything stopped when he got the call, a meal made, plus a lunch, while he showered and packed. Whatever came up while he was gone I had to be handle on my own.

Don’t get me wrong. There were all kinds of advantages to the life and I learned to be organized and ready for just about everything, which serves me well now. I’ve had lots of time to write and yet, not. I’ve often been what we call a railroader widow—a single mom taking care of home and family. I was the one helping with the Pinewood Derby, the shop projects, broken windows of the neighbors.

With all that, this caregiving challenge has been the most devastating to my writing.

As my parent has aged, it has been an ever-increasing addition of jobs to take over, take care of and still I’m letting so much…too much slid. There have been health issues for both her and me. Not so surprising for me to have them, caregivers often do. The stress of caregiving adds to a caregiver’s well-being.

I’ve been extremely lucky; my parent has remained mobile, alert, with an almost too-good memory until recently. The changes in my life: my parent’s declining health, memory and my husband’s retirement has further hampered my writing and as I’m pragmatic( really: heart in the clouds, head on the ground, do the chores, before you have the fun) when it comes to responsibility, I know finding time to write is impossible. I can’t do it. I will never move my writing ahead. I am, after all, a senior myself.

Depression often dogs me because of the impossible situation in which I find myself. Yet, I know what I’m determined to do. Take care of my parent, as best I can, and the rest of my wonderful, worth-it family and stay healthy, happy as possible and WRITE. STILL.

I write to save myself. I write to be myself and find myself. It was what I was meant to do with my life. I know this…I have always known this. And that I am not as successful as I hoped breaks my heart and yet…I write…every day. That only is such an accomplishment.

All these stumbling blocks…they are my life and none of it is going anywhere soon. I have to deal with it, such as it is.

So…, I write. I still write. I fight, and scratch, and steal the time, but I still write. I cry, and rant, and cuss, and mourn. I still write. I forget, disappoint, fail, mess up. I still write.

Sometimes…never, is it as long or as much as I want to, but I write. Every day…something. Sometimes, I let someone down, everyone but I try as hard as possible to make sure it isn’t my mom. She is the neediest. She is the ephemeral. I try never to forget that.

But I write. I work on my novels during the week when I have time and they take too long, the rewrites take too long, everything takes too long. I work on poetry every chance I get, especially on vacation. I write the poems, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, sometimes a hundred drafts before I’m satisfied, and they take too long.

But…I still write.