Plans, Goals and Motivations. Oh, My!

I feel somewhat at a loss, aimless and foolishly sentimental, and disconnected, when I’ve finished one work and haven’t yet become absorbed in another. —Marianne Moore, poet

The end of this year, the beginning of a new year is coming—faster than I’d like. The most labor-intensive holiday is finished and cleaned up. Every other Thanksgiving my family comes home for a home cooked Thanksgiving and I go all out, reproducing, as close as possible, the Thanksgivings we had when the boys were small. I made the memories and now, I want to pluck at them. Maybe, it’s just for me and my memories, but I hope it’s for them and theirs, also.

And now the Christmas season is in full bloom, but I’ve got most of the shopping done—only odds and ends to still pick up and Christmas dinner is simpler, more buffet, less sit down dinner. I don’t do as much homemade, going with deli salads, veg. and fruit trays with only a rib roast to rotisserie. My husband handles that, so I can enjoy the company a little more.

With most of December opened to some well-deserved fun and plenty of writing, with Ella and the Tie-down Man finished again, I’m ready to work. As I said before here, I pulled back on submissions after some critiques pointed out a few things that would make the reading flow better and did a quick edit for the problem. The book is done and ready for submission. That’s the plan.

The goal is to work on something else, right? I have mixed feelings about what. I have a series ready for submission mostly. I say mostly because there are four books in the series, two complete except for a final edit. The third book is roughly two-thirds done and the fourth kind of dead in the water. I worked on the three books over several years, but that fourth book has eluded me, for some reason. I, also, have two stand-alone books, each more than half-finished. I have a chapbook of poetry I’ve been working on for some time, but I really need a few more poems to complete it. Of course, there are always new story ideas nibbling at my mind, too.

The editing for Ella and the Tie-down Man was arduous, mostly because of the illness that sidetracked me and slowed me down even once I got back on track. I had so many starts and stops, frustrations and disappointments. It’s made me a bit gun shy to tackle editing again and yet, that’s what seems to float to the top of my what-to-do-next list.

And there’s motivation. You’re better off going with the thing that excites you, right? So, last week before I buried myself in stuffing, candied yams and pies, I dug out my old series (It took both me and my husband to excavate the file box. The research files, the printed up copies ready for the last edits, all put away when western historicals fell out of favor were too heavy for me), brushed off the dust and opened the lid.

I was a little afraid to look inside, fearful it would be too much like the last time I opened a file box. There was such a sorrow, of sorts, of a work interrupted. Not this time, thank goodness. This time felt less like being lost and coming back to a place I didn’t remember and more like coming home. Proof of how sick I was, testament to my complete recovery. (Yes!)

I made the right choice to start editing my Teardrop Ranch series. Wish me luck.

Seeds:

Used to be they started trickling in after Christmas, after all the tinsel and pine boughs were cleared out, tax documents filled the mailbox and the darkest days of winter hung over my world. You know those days, where cold is deeper than bone, hazy, gray days are the norm and snow is almost a relief from the inversion.

Now, often as not, they come along with the Christmas cards and catalogs. They come when I’m too busy wrapping presents and making treats to enjoy. So, I put them aside with regret and don’t open them until after the madness of Christmas and New Years is over.

There’s a huge pile this year, two inches of seductive, lush seed catalogs. The color pictures more tempting than Godiva chocolate. That tomato on the cover dripping juice and sunshine. That hollyhock mix glowing yellow, copper, rose, red, burgundy-purple and white, as yummy looking as jellybeans.

I promised that this year I’d be reasonable. This year I’d be smart. I wouldn’t buy too many flower seeds for the flower gardens we condensed last year. I wouldn’t go overboard on the vegetable seeds. Not this year. But, oh, how to choose?

Seed catalogs remind me of my writing ideas. Too many. I write every idea that comes to me down in an idea file, but I can’t use all of them. I know that. So, how do I choose? I love them all. I must or I wouldn’t take the time to write them down. So, then it comes down to weeding out the impractical, the too hard, the too easy, the too-much research, the curious, the unexciting.

I narrow it down until I'm left with only those things (ideas or seeds) I just can’t stop thinking about. Then, I narrow it down even more. To the one or two ideas (seeds) that I just can’t shake, that I know exactly what to do with. And I tell myself that next year, I'll make different choices.

As hard as it is, that's better than no ideas, (or no seed catalogs)?

The Beginning

The Beginning

I get by with a little help from my friends.
—John Lennon and Paul McCartney

You hear writers complain about how solitary writing is, how isolated they feel, even as they pray for time alone to ‘write.’ That quiet room is a double–edged sword when words won’t come. A grand desire we fear, too, because there are no excuses there. Only the fact you’re not writing.



Here’s two quite empty hours, honey. What you going to do with it?



From experience, I know I never get enough. Of the two hours or work done. And that quiet can be deafening. Incessant as a September house fly. The whirring fan noise at the end of summer that you finally switch off and your ears sigh.



Summer’s done in. My ears, too.



You hear writers complain how agonizing writing can be. That all you have to do is open a vein, sit in a chair until blood beads across your forehead, pull up memories better left alone. Non-writers rarely understand why we do it. And they’re right, if only we could help it. Most of us wouldn’t put ourselves through it either, except-we love what we do. How can you explain that to someone who doesn’t write? Well, you can’t. It’s like explaining golf. If the person with the lowest score wins, I never can figure out why to begin in the first place.



So writers get together with other writers. They have workshops, conferences and critic groups. They whine and commiserate. That’s how they survive. They grab hold of one another’s arm and help each other up one little step. Again and again.



I had that too, until a few years ago. I had a group I managed to meet with once a month. I had a friend I talked to regularly or at least e-mailed once a week. We supported each other. Gave each other pep talks and cheerleading rah, rah rahs. Then circumstances changed as my mother aged, then developed age-related breast cancer. I stopped going to meetings so I could shuttle her to the store, to the doctors, to lunch, out of the house. I still had my small block of writing time though. That was most important.





And I kept in touch with my friend, needing the feedback from another writer. I needed that encouragement and support. Needed the inspiration.



It’s been over four years. My ninety-two year old mother is still doing well, God bless her. I wouldn’t wish anything else. The time spent with her has been rewarding and rich, but of course more time-intensive.



My friend’s circumstances have changed, too. She is busy with an aging parent, too, and a retired husband. We get in touch rarely now. And of course, it isn’t the same. We’ve lost the threads. We haven’t the time or consistency of knowing the detail of each other’s writing life. Though she has been there in hours of great need, and there have been those, as I was diagnosed with a kidney disease just this year, I have been absent another writer’s shoulder or I should say, arm, for too long.



My writing has suffered this year. No way around that, but even worse, I’ve lost my writer’s support and I feel that just as keenly.



It came to me one sleepless night. I have to be the thing I need, even if it’s just for me. I know there must be other lost writers, floundering writers that need a voice out there saying, you can do it. Don’t give up. No matter what. DON’T GIVE UP. Save yourself. Write anyway. If nothing else. Save yourself.



Let me tell you how I got through that one. You tell me how you got through that one. All I needed was just one someone, just some common ordinary writer, rarely published who’ll grab an arm, help me take one more step. Don’t you, too?



How can I be the thing I need? I thought I’ll start this blog.