Stop the Voices!

Courtesy of michi2004 (freepik.com)

The voices keep coming. It took them no time at all to grapple with my brain cells, yanking and yanking as they pulled out connections, added confusion, and debilitated my writing...

My daughter has them, too, but only when it comes to math word problems. She just took a test, missing all but one word problem at the end of the exam, though her overall grade was pretty good.

I looked over the test with her yesterday. "I see your brain shut off right here."

"Yup," she agreed. "I hate word problems."

"Why?"

"I just can't do them." She had just repeated what the voices told her, and she and I both knew it. We've been working on what I call "Math Therapy" for a few weeks now, practicing over and over what she is going to say every time those voices crop up and tell her You can't do this.

"What were you supposed to say to them?" I ask her.

"Shut up." This is her talking to the voices, not to me, of course.

"That's right," I tell her, nodding.

But then I face my novel, again. The one I had started to revise before my laptop's hard drive blew up. The one I was really turning into something brilliant. Before the great big bang. Before it was all gone.

And the voices come back as I am revising. You'll never get it back the way it was, they say.

"Shut up. I'll make it even better."

You can't even remember how you moved sections of it around. 

"Shut up!" But I couldn't stop listening. The voice was right. Everything seemed jumbled.

It's not going to work.

The voices continued, creepier and creepier as the minutes passed. I made it to page eight, sweating like a pig by the time I gave up for the night.

But I'm going back, voices and all. If my daughter can face word problems day after day, I can do this too.

Really Not Writing--UNTIL TODAY!!!

You know this already. This is not new information.

I'm not writing.

Nope, haven't written a page of anything in weeks!

A shocker. Yet again, I've filled my life with everything in the world I possibly can to keep myself from writing.

I could blame the kids for needed to be home schooled. (Okay, I'm one of those weird moms who pull their kids out of school and then torture them with whiteboards, essay assignments, Latin, Astronomy, and all sorts of odd subjects inside my own house.) It takes a lot of time.

I could blame my stupid hard drive for developing "mechanical failure," meaning that all info on it once it's crashed becomes completely inaccessible except to the CIA. It certainly punched me in the gut, especially once I realized that I'd e-mailed only my finished novels to myself, and not the latest revision of my ghost story (which I was halfway through editing), nor--*gasp*--last year's NANOWRIMO novel all about mermaids. It was like I'd never written it.

But the truth is, these are all excuses. If I don't write, it's because I have chosen not to. It's my own damn fault, and no one else's. If I really wanted to write, I would have written.

Now that I've accepted responsibility, it's time to write.

No, really. I'm going to write. I wrote here, didn't I? My first entry since LAST APRIL, people! Jeez! And it's only going to get better the more I write. And easier.

So I'm writing. I have one more blog entry to do, on my other site, Creative Arts Anonymous, and then I'm off to start my funeral novel (all about dead people and a funeral director...). And I will make time for writing EVERY SINGLE DAY. WITHOUT FAIL. I will put writing on the top of my list every day, not the bottom.

With my new external hard drive in hand, ready to back-up everything, I will succeed and restarting, at returning to what I truly love to do, without fear, without regret, without anything holding me back.

And I will get it done.

Just Give Up

You know it's hopeless.

So just give up already.

You've been trying for weeks to lose weight, but you've eaten just enough cookies to negate the extra walking you've been doing. But you can't give up cookies FOREVER. So just give up. Go on. Accept that you'll always have that stomach, just the way it is. All those Biggest Loser contestants have different chromosomes than you do.

So give up. Quit trying.

And it's not like you'll ever get a real job again. Why the hell are you even wasting your time applying? Just suck it up, keep the job you hate. Don't bother with college. Years from now, it's not like you'll suddenly have a job you like. Why even try? Just go home and watch TV. Take your mind off your crummy life.

But accept that it's crummy. And it always will be. So give it up already.

Why are you still working on your goddamn novels. They all suck, and even if they ever don't suck, even if you finally get them where you want them to be, it's not like the publishers out there will ever read them. Or at least it will take time--years maybe--and that's too long. Better to use your time eating your way through three pints of ice cream than working on those stupid novels. At least ice cream tastes good. Okay, sure, there are some really good parts to that novel. Yeah, sure, you might actually have fun writing all that crap. Or even revising it, if you're a complete lunatic. Just don't think, for one minute, that it's going to get you anywhere.

So give up. Just give up.

Like anybody gets anywhere just by working at it. Sheesh!

Being Means Doing

It took me years to call myself a writer.

Now I can use the term in public--without that weird clog in my throat I used to get trying to make the words come out--but I'm still a fraud. I say, "I'm a writer."

But it isn't true. A writer, above all, writes. Notice the present tense. Better yet, make it present progressive: A writer is writing. Currently. Right now. Putting words on a page, revising, creating worlds and characters, designing suspenseful and meaningful plots, enjoying the Lego-like building and destruction that children enjoy.

A writer is planning query letters. Reading scenes aloud to hear the dialogue. Arranging words in their best order for poetry. Perhaps even finding a rhyme or two (though that's rarely me).

I have a friend who is a painter. She told me, "I try to make painting a priority--try to spend at least three days a week painting."

I asked her, "You get three days a week in? That's impressive."

She frowned at me, thought a bit, and said, "No, I get about one day every two weeks." Yet she is far more of a painter than I am a writer.

I do write. A little. I am writing this blog entry. I write a poem here or there. But mostly I just grade essays. Mostly I do laundry and dishes. Mostly I write business letters for my other jobs, assess journals for my classes, prep for teaching. Clean my house.

But I don't write. If I have a few minutes of free time, I go play piano. Hell, I even paint more than I write. I go to play rehearsal. I watch TV, even if I hate everything I watch. I fill my hours with tasks I dislike, instead of pulling back, taking days here and there just to write.

I still can't figure out why I do it, but I do it nonetheless. And until I start writing again, I'm not a writer.

Maybe someday I will be.

Why Do I Listen to Myself?

I have given in at times...

I've backed away from a challenge when people suggested I wasn't good enough to do something. I've held back from trying when I knew no one expected me to make it.

But I've also proven people wrong so many times. I wasn't supposed to marry my hubby--it wouldn't work, my family said--but we're about to celebrate 20 years of marriage. I was told not to try being a teacher (it wouldn't suit me), yet I've managed to get three degrees in English and teach for nearly as many years as I've been married. And I'm a good teacher. I'm interesting, I'm effective, and I'm fair but tough.

I've learned to ignore what people say. They are too quick to give up on me, to likely to be skeptical about my abilities, too likely to brush over me, dismiss me, ignore me.

But then my own inner voices come... and they tell me the same things... and I don't ignore them. I let them shove me down, pull me back, shiver me into a corner. I back away from challenge. I hold back, I keep quiet, I shut myself up entirely.

Why? Why do I listen? Why don't I slap those nasty voices into next week (oops, there's a bad pun), toss them in the trash where they belong, wash myself free of them in the shower, letting them go down the drain and disappear for good?

Better yet, why don't I try to SHOW them? I do this with outside people, but I don't challenge my own voices. Why don't I just see this as a challenge?

It's because they are me. They are my caution, my tact, my defensive mechanisms. These same voices keep me from saying stupid or mean things out of anger. Sometimes shutting up is the best choice, and I'm grateful when they help me make it, too.

I can't just chunk them out a random window. They are as much me as the determination, the work ethic, the sensitivity, the everything of me. But they need to go to their room sometimes, and let me work. They need to leave off. They need to go take a nap or something so that I can get back to writing without them screaming at me.

Wow. They're listening. I'm amazed. I can see their shoulders hunching a little in shame. I can see their sad looks. Their off to their rooms to think about what they've done. Are they giving me the day off? I sure hope so. I could use the afternoon for writing. Without their looking over my shoulder.

Now I'm off. If they pop their heads out, I'll just glare until the heads disappear. If they start grumbling, I'll turn on the radio to drown them out.

Maybe I should turn on the radio NOW.

Not So Philosophical

Sometimes I find it hard to think when everyone around me is screaming.

The amount of trauma drama all around me right now astonishes me. And I believe most of it is invented, self-inflicted, self-wounding. People raging all around at each other, then keening loudly because everyone has abandoned them. People taking everything personally. People harming each other, then wondering why others seem so ticked. What could the matter be?

Tough life.

Thank God I don't have to live it. Not because the swirling waters around all around my ankles, but because around my ankles they can't sweep me off to drown. I have to choose to walk into the deeper water.

I don't choose to. And I won't choose to.

Life is just life. It's good and bad. People are kind and cruel. But I have a choice. We all do. My choice is to do what makes me happy, avoid the trauma drama, and help my kids keep their equilibrium, too. So this morning, with the world falling all around me, I'm at peace, knowing that I have not lost my mind. I can calm the waters all around me, give my kids a chance to swim in the warm water, and have a glorious, sunny day.

Despite the trauma drama.

Hurdles

I'd love to start working on my Mermaid novel again.

I really would. But I have two syllabi to finish... and they need to be finished NOW. Class starts Monday for one, Tuesday for the other.

My little devil voices have been whispering... "Why not just get part of it planned, and then you can plan out the rest as you go?"

I'm no fool. I haven't been teaching 20 years for nothing. If I don't plan it out now, I'll be scrambling mid-semester to get it done, and then I'll have papers that need grading, other projects pending, and God only knows what else.

You see, the syllabi seem like hurdles right now... and they sort of are... but they are self-imposed. I could do what the voices say, but I'd be putting off more planning, starting the semester without a crystal clear idea of where the semester will end up, setting myself up for panic later.

And I don't like panic.

Same with novel writing. Only once have I written a whole draft of a novel without planning it out meticulously. And my next "revision" of that novel will mean scrapping 75% of it, minimum. It means more work for me in the long run, not less.

That's why I plan. And that's why I'm off to finish those &%*#(@ syllabi, to save myself a world of time later.

Anything you're in the midst of planning?