Using My Imagination...

My desk takes up a small corner of my living room.  It is next to a window, which is a good thing and a bad thing.  The window provides much needed light for my work, but it also provides as much distraction as a television.  The least thing pulls my attention away from what I should be doing.

I have noticed, the past few days, a number of circling vultures above the woods behind my neighbors' and my properties.  This morning, I noticed a large contingent of them sitting in the trees in my neighbors' yard.

In the country, such a sight is not that odd.  Animals die--cats, dogs, skunks, coyotes--it happens.  The vultures are nature's disposals; they take care of the waste.

But, when I see a large group of them so close to home, my imagination starts to work.  Come to think of it, I haven't seen my neighbors--either of them--in at least a month.  The person who seems to be staying there has stayed at the house before; these neighbors seem to travel a great deal.  So he's not a stranger.  Yet...

The problem with being a writer is that my imagination tends to take me on these wild journeys through what might be possible.  The writer in me says, "Suppose the person staying there has murdered the homeowners?  There's that privacy fence they put up.  The nosy neighbor could get a stool or ladder and look over the fence in the backyard..."  And, thus, the premise for a short story or novel rears its head. 

And that's fine.  Writers have to get their ideas somewhere.  But it's also distracting...I should be working on coursework, and I'm sitting here dreaming up a novel or story.  Usually, I just write myself a note for later and go back to what I was doing.  But, sometimes, the idea is so compelling that it derails me...and that's not always a good thing!

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

Last November, the students who tuned into my blog had to put up with me yammering about NaNoWriMo and had to endure endless updates of my word count.

NaNoWriMo takes place every November. For 30 days, NaNos write their brains out in an attempt to write a short novel in a month. To win, one needs to write 50,000 words between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. Editing and rewriting take place in December. The goal is just to get the words down.

I didn't provide constant updates this year. I'm not sure I mentioned it at all, except on my Facebook page. But, I am happy to say, I've reached 50,351 words, which is 351 words more than I need to "win" NaNo. And we have another week to go.

Last year, I wrote about 64,000 words by the time Nov. 30 rolled around. I have no idea how many words I'll end up with this year, but the novel's not finished. The story unfolded so much easier than the one I wrote last year. I like the characters; I like everything about it; I don't even mind that it's ended up being a fantasy/romance. That's just the way it played out. Sometimes, you just have to let the characters have their way.

So, here's my badge for this year. I hope, on November 30, to provide a word count update along with a winner's badge. Am I proud of myself? Hell, yeah! To do this for the second time in two years is something to be proud of.

Now, if I can just get this one published...that's my goal, and I'm going to do my best to make it happen.

April is Poetry Month...

so I am participating at NaPoWriMo at Poets.org, where my friend, Catherine Rogers, moderates a forum.

I've gotten another friend/former student involved.  It's similar to NaNoWriMo--but for NaPo, the object is to write a poem a day.  I'm hoping it forces me to get back into the poetry-writing habit that I abandoned a while ago. 

I used to write poetry all the time--and I do mean that!  I've had poems published, and I received a fellowship for my poetry.  But, after I read and/or grade 60-70 essays or other writing assignments, I don't feel poetic.  By the time I finish grading papers, I feel like Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady"--"Words, words, words--I'm so sick of words."

Just so my students don't go into a blue funk, let me say that not everything I read is awful.  It's just that, after my brain processes all those words, it has trouble finding more.  I have to decompress; then I have to begin grading again.  It's a never-ending cycle.

So far, so good...I've posted two poems.  I wrote them a few weeks ago, but I've been revising them.  As long as they're still "in play," I think of them as current.  And today I've written a couple of poems that need work, so I'll use those when I'm ready for someone to see them.

Ah, one must have these little challenges! 

Waxing Poetic

I have been trying to come up with ideas for a new blog--not that I ever truly have problems--but I couldn't decide what I wanted to tackle next.  It occurred to me, though, that I should write about writing poetry, since my Facebook cohorts and I have been swapping poems we like and poems we've written.

I've been writing poetry since I was in high school, which was a loooooong time ago (in a galaxy far, far away...not really!).  That doesn't mean that I'm a great poet; it just means I've been trying to be a better poet for almost 40 years.  I've published my work in a few small literary journals, been a member of a number of writing groups, edit poetry journals, won a fellowship ($2500--I bought a new dryer, among other things), and met so many wonderful writers that I can't remember them all. 

All that means squat.

A writer can't sit back and say, "Well, I've done that, so I don't need to do anything else."  It's not about what I wrote yesterday, it's about what I've written today.  The admonishment, "Never a day without a line" is one I take seriously.  So, even if all I write is a blog, I try to write something.  Some days, I only write comments on students' essays and assignments, but I try to put some thought into those, too.

These days, I don't feel poetic.  I think the constant grind of life distracts me.  Occasionally, the muse will gift me a line, and I snatch it and mine it for all it's worth.  I never take those gifts for granted.  But I don't sit around waiting for them, either.

Most writers will say that good writing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.  Good writing takes work.  That's the hard part--a writer has to work at writing.  And, of course, I believe what I teach my students, that the most important part of writing is revising.  I have a friend, an excellent poet named Brenda Hillman, who revises most of her poems at least 50 times.  It shows.  Her work is luminous, something that I envy and aspire to.  As long as I keep such good poets around me, as long as I read their works and study their techniques, I'll improve. 

So, here's the poem I posted on my Facebook page:

Hourglass

Curvy, that's how
I would describe
her
and him
and them, together.
Perhaps nervy,
him thinking
she's the type
who'll put up
with anything.
She dips and narrows
as the sands
of her time fall through
this impasse,
this impossible maneuver.

And, remember, it's my original work, so it's copywrited.  I have the handwritten original to prove it.

Grading Papers...

That's what I should be doing, but I keep finding other things to do--going to the grocery store, defrosting a chicken, making coffee, cooking lunch, washing clothes...

I have a set of papers to grade today. Saturday night, I have two sets of essays due; Sunday, I have one set of essays due; Monday, I have a final exam to give and a set of course evaluations due; Tuesday, I have a set of course evaluations due; Wednesday, I have a set of finals due; Thursday, I have a final exam to give at 8am.

I need to have all of these papers graded, grades averaged and posted by 10am on Monday, Dec. 15. Eeek! I'll have them done if I can just make myself work.

On the other hand, it's a beautiful, cold day. My house is a wreck because I've ignored it all semester. I have several novels to work on. I can find so much to distract me right now, right at the moment I can't afford to be distracted.

Time to get the blinders out. Work takes precedence.

A Totally Satisfying Turkey Day...

Greetings from Austin, Texas, the Music Capital of America! 

Unbeknownst to me, my daughter is no longer a strict vegetarian, so my Turkey Day wasn't all veggies.  We went to a nice gathering with tons of great food--turkey included--and chowed down.  I'm still full.

After dinner, we worked off the calories by bowling on the Wii.  It was fun, but just confirmed what a lousy bowler I am!

While my NaNoWriMo novel sits for a week or two, I have two other novels employing the same characters--one is complete, the other is about 112 pages and needs to be finished.  All are in great need of editing, so I've been working on the first two, but I also began another novel in the urban vampire genre, which is probably a bit overdone right now with Twilight and True Blood, but I have a different angle I'm working on.  I have about 11,000 + words (about 45 pages or so).  So, I keep writing or revising.  I'm getting myself in the habit of writing/editing about two hours every day--some days, I write longer than others, depending on what else I need to do.  But establishing the habit is the hard part, so that's what I'm working on--to get in the habit.

As a teacher, I have to be disciplined--those papers don't grade themselves, and I hate grading papers!  It's time-consuming.  My students often tell me that I don't need to give them the work, but, if I don't, I can't give them grades.  It's a no-brainer.  I can't grade them on personalities--that just wouldn't be fair to the shy ones.

I haven't been so disciplined with my writing--as a poet, I wrote when I had something to say, and only then.  I didn't constantly write poems, either.  But, with prose, I have to write to develop the plot and the characters--that takes more time, so I have to set aside the time to get it done.

Okay, my fingers hurt, as does my back, so I'm going to stop for now.  I've finished grading a set of essays and have been writing for about four hours--and this is supposed to be a break!  But, I guess, writers never stop writing.

Hope you've had a restful and yummy holiday.

Novel Update...

I have "finished" my novel, in the sense that I've written the last first-draft word. I uploaded it to NaNoWriMo for a validation count, and the robocounters came up with 64,155 words; Word counted 64,259, but I think Word was counting the Roman Numeral headings.

Does that mean I'm "finished" with it? No. All writers should know that the real work begins after the initial draft is "done." So now what?

Well, I think, while I'm waiting for NaNoWriMo to end (Nov. 30), that I'm going to let it sit. I already know what I need to do to remedy the plot, and I've made copious notes on that. I have several other novels that are in various stages of revision, and I need to work on those. I also have an idea for another novel, and I could spend some time on that. I don't want to get too far away from the NaNo novel, though. But I've got the writing jones now, and I feel as though I need to keep the momentum of this month.

Whenever I hear myself say, "I don't have time to write," I know I'm lying. If I can write 64,000 words and teach five classes, I don't have an excuse. What I need to do is to reserve those two hours a day for writing no matter what's going on.

I've been stealing time where I can. Some days, I write before I grade papers. Other days, I try writing in half-hour bursts between grading papers. I think it requires both discipline and flexibility in equal measure--the discipline to just do it, and the flexibility to fit it around all the other stuff I need to do.

Writing is hard work. I can't deny that. Some days, after I've put in the two hours and graded two sets of papers, my mind feels like mush, and I feel as though I've run a marathon. My muscles ache, especially my arms, fingers and neck, from sitting at a keyboard with minimal breaks. I've added stretching to my routine to work out the kinks.

I don't know what I "win" for completing this--probably a few "atta-girls" and the congratulations of my writing buddies. But I feel as though I've done something, and that's the best prize of all.