Seeing the Forest and the Trees

Pondering. That is actually where I've been all these long weeks. Feeling a little lost, I've been plagued by self-doubt. Blocked, but faking it all the way. But really. I'd just forgotten to look up! November has its way with me every year, but this started way before that.

Early October hit hard, work, home, commitments, visitors, etc. Distractions and diversions. My writing brain just loves them! I've been playing in the field of self-doubt lately...and that is a dangerous thing.

But today, I pushed myself out of the hole. I've been immersed in memoir with my sixth graders, carving out samples of writing and sharing them with my kids. I've been working on the all too familiar 'Show, Don't Tell' lesson, watching them and reading what they've actually put on the page. When all of a sudden a voice from the back of the room cries out..."Now I get it! It's like living in that moment!"

Well, exactly! Be the moment! I heard a football player interviewed recently, and he said when he's headed toward the end zone, he is transcended...he is the ball. So, my message to my kids was actually the reteaching my writing brain needed too; be one with the story. Not so new to me. But somehow when I'm living in self-doubt, I never seem to see the trees, because I'm staring at the forest floor.

A little while after that, two girls stopped me on the way out of class and asked...no, demanded that I think inside my eleven year old brain. The decision was about braces. "Translucent or metal," they asked. "Metal," I said. "Definitely. I love all the color possibilities...and I could actually arrange my outfits to match!" Suddenly, they (and the universe) had taught me a whole lot more than I could've learned for myself.

So hello to my inner eleven year old; and hello story again! It feels so good to have that buzzing sound back inside my brain!

Just Hangin'

Well, I've been busy spinning my wheels again. You see, I am practicing what most writers love most: avoidance! Blogger and Facebook have wormed their way into my brain, taking up enormous amounts of time and what limited brainpower I have by day's end. This morning, I slept right through my writing time, because I was up way too late the night before. That cute little bugger, the internet is becoming a monkey around my neck. What am I avoiding?

The dreaded QUERY letter. Oh God, do I hate those things! How does one reduce two hundred pages of manuscript to one paragraph or two? I've always been a lousy self-promoter to begin with. My other obstacle--revision. I'm back to work on a completed young adult novel, straddling the two worlds of new work and old, trying to go back, while I'm addicted to the new story, that new character and the full array of possibilities there.

So, instead of getting back to work on any one of the aforementioned items...I'm hanging out, dangling, blogging and watching Katherine Hepburn and Bogie in African Queen. I've been warned about the black hole called the internet by all my friends. Bogie and Kate have encountered raging falls, massive swarms of mosquitoes and now they're lost. Boy, do I know how they feel. "You've paid your money, so make your choice," says Bogie. "That way," says Kate pointing. Ironically, 'that way' sends them into a swamp of muck. They've got to paddle, and push themselves..."All the twisting and turning we've done, we'll probably come back where we started. This river is crazy," he says.So what does he do, this Bogie. He gets out and into the murky water and pulls the boat along. When the leeches came, I had to turn it off!! Enough already. It's time to write again. Hangin' out always looks so good in the beginning, but then what looks cute always turns ugly. Time to hoist myself onto dry land, get my butt in the chair and focus on the next right thing. Query, revise...and work toward the new piece. 'That way,' I say! Let's hope I make a better choice than Kate. Brother!