The Time Machine

By Susan

I've been compiling books to deliver to the InternationalBook Project over the past few weeks. My dining room is stacked tall with cardboard boxes. For the past two years, every time I drive to Kentucky from Texas I fill my car with as many spines as I can, and this trip is no exception.

After a mad rush of spring cleaning right before Easter, I decided to thin my own shelves as well, and I filled a box with book titles ranging from John Grisham's paperbacks to marketing and PR titles from my prior life in advertising sales. For a brief moment, I thought about the working life I had before leaping off the proverbial cliff to write full time and to obtain my MFA in Creative Writing. I didn't dwell on that prior life on that day last week, instead I tossed the books into a box and set them aside.

Yesterday I shuffled and organized the books and one particular self-help type business book stood out to me. I couldn't remember buying it or reading it, yet there it was. I flipped it open to see the following inscription (in the photo below): April 24, 2005.

Upon reading that date, I actually stepped away from the book. Nine years ago, to the day, exactly. Then I picked it back up and carried it to my patio to read it. Each chapter was designed with questions at the end, and 80% of the book was filled with my own notes. It was as if I'd opened a time machine.

Nine years ago, my youngest daughter hadn't even started kindergarten, and right now she's planning for junior high (that put things in perspective!). I had a full-time job in advertising sales management, working fifty-hour weeks, striving for promotions and fruitlessly, endlessly seeking my boss's approval. The questions at chapter ends were designed to help the reader find a life purpose and mission. They were simple questions, yet I scribbled in the margins extensively, answering each probe as though my future depended on it.

Perhaps it did.

Here's an example question, and my embarrassingly fearful answers:

3. When was the last time you took a risk in the direction of your dream?

I'm afraid of myself—of "too much risk." How can I do what I want to do and take the time to write and be published and get it all done? … Then again, why am I so sure I am supposed to be writing? What am I supposed to write? … What is my direction? Maybe if I could figure it out I wouldn't be so scared.

And then, this, dated May 16, 2005:

I long to write full time. I don't even know what that means—retreats, conferences, a community of writers? Workshops? Accountability as a writer? (terrifying) Publishing a novel? (more terrifying) What is the answer here? If I wrote full time, I could be free. And yet I feel safe in my current world. I'm too afraid to branch out. Why am I scared of the words?

I was surprised at my own thirty-three year old voice. In other entries I wrote about feeling rudderless, about having no purpose other than going to work every day and being a mom (both important purposes, I'm not diminishing those roles in any way). From these entries, it appears quite clear that nine years ago I was seeking some sort of permission from myself to pursue my calling. And I was terrified of writing. 

And here I am now, following my purpose in delivering books to my favorite non-profit. Following my dreams of being a writer by finalizing the third draft of my novel. Yesterday, I talked to my agent-- a relationship I would never have dreamed of having nine years ago. In June, I'm returning for my second residency with my MFA program, and I'm planning creative writing workshops-- to teach, not to attend-- for the fall. 

What if nine years ago I'd given in to my own fears, and I'd never carved out those late nights to begin the painful (very painful) first steps toward writing a novel? What if I'd let the terrifying thought of leaving my career enslave me? Would I be sitting on my beautiful patio with a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers, a cup of coffee, and sleeping dogs on my toes, or would I be in an office, making split-second decisions, and hiring and firing, all while daydreaming of a writing life?

Thinking about those questions prompted me to write a letter from myself at fifty to the me sitting right here, right now. She's the same me from nine years ago (although a lot less fearful). I'm still not where I want to be as a writer. My mission is still in progress. So what is the best advice I can give myself? Here's a small snippet of that letter. 

It's all going to work out. Keep writing. Don't stop writing because you face rejection or disappointments or are getting older—you'll still get older, anyway. Embrace getting older. Love your face and lungs and legs and hands. Love your words. Love your work. Be hopeful about the future. Take care of your health. Look forward to all the love in your life. Keep writing and keep following your passions and your purpose. And don't ever, ever give up.

And so I'm passing this on to you, just in case you are the fearful me from 2005. Or maybe you're where I am now, in the middle and on the cusp of bigger things. Maybe you are the fifty-year-old writer looking forward to your next decade of your writing life and looking back on your success. I certainly don't have any answers about how to do it, this writing life thing. I have a lot less money now than I did back then, but I'd like to think I'm on the right road to gaining far more than I ever dreamed.

Writing Through Writer's Block

By Susan

I’ve always been pretty consistent with my writings… from journal entries to this blog, to working on my novel. If I don’t write new words every day, something’s wrong.

Yet over the past few months something changed. Blame it on summer. Blame it on my own weariness with my novel. Was this writer's block? I wasn't sure, but I certainly wasn’t writing. I’d been in a restless place with the editing of my manuscript, and editing didn't feel like writing at all. I felt stagnant and stuck, unable to put new words on paper--because I’d been too busy worrying about the novel instead of writing one. (Worrying about writing isn’t the same as writing. Trust me on this.)

Then I spent a week cradled by mountains at the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop. I got to listen to what other people do with their pens--poets spinning words into golden threads, essayists painting a new perspective on life’s simplest tasks. I listened to the words of people who are just as crazy about writing as I am as they spoke the truth, even when it hurt. And I came back to Texas inspired. It was a great reminder of why I write.

Since my return, I have challenged myself with different prompts to stretch my words to new places.

I started by writing poetry and short essays on nature. I wrote a creation myth that might find its way into my next novel. I played around with the idea of writing down children's stories--the tales I used to tuck in my daughters with when they were small. None of it has had anything to do with the manuscript I am currently editing. Not one word has felt like worry about what I've already written… and it felt like freedom.

And then I figured it out: all of a sudden, I’m only writing for me again. I’m not thinking about my agent, or editor. I’m not thinking about a book deal and what that even might mean. I’m just putting new words on paper because that’s what I do. And it’s felt great.

I suppose this means that I've been writing through my writer's block. I can’t think of any other way to do it. I’m showing up every day, hoping to capture a muse or a glimpse of genius. And of course, some days are better than others. But the worry has gone away. The dread of editing has lifted. It’s all a process, of course, this ebb and flow of a writing life. But it’s been a great reminder—it’s only a writing life if I am writing. Every day.

I Have a Book to Finish

By Kim

The blogosphere has many posts about balancing the writing life with real life. I even wrote one myself at this time last year. Summer vacation loomed and I despaired at the thought of accomplishing nothing on my novel during it. My children were, to be fair, only a fraction of the problem. I had reached a point in the manuscript where my muses weren’t talking, or perhaps I just didn’t like what they had to say. I needed to tune them out for awhile.

Now I can’t ignore them. They jabber away in my head while I run errands, do laundry, and tend to my family’s needs. Even when I have the house to myself, other obligations prevent me from taking dictation for hours on end.

If I didn’t share posting duties at What Women Write with five other women, there’s no way I’d ever finish my manuscript. I’m not the sort of writer who can bang out five hundred words in an hour and throw it up on this blog anymore than I can compose three (or even two) thousand words in a day. I envy authors who can, but I’m too much of a compulsive editor.

A typical post takes me a full day to compose, edit, and put up on Blogger, and that’s after I know what I intend to write about. A book review is far less time consuming to compose, but requires me to read a novel before I can write it. The same goes for an author interview, only in that case I need to tack on at least an hour’s worth of time to come up with questions the author hasn’t already answered on twenty blogs, in the Q and A sections of their books, or on their websites.

Before the tone of this post scares my WWW colleagues or you, I should clarify that I have no intention of bowing out of my blogging duties. I’m simply taking stock of the time commitment involved in the hope that our readers who may toy with the idea of starting a blog of their own will find it helpful.

Painting by Carl Ahrens

Having to write on a deadline, even when ideas and words don’t flow, is a valuable exercise. Someday I hope to have a new novel to write, a finished one to edit, and a published one to promote. I’ll have book club meetings to attend, guest blog posts to write, Facebook and Twitter to update, interviews to give and, I suspect, my sanity to lose. I know I’ll look back with longing on this time when I had no writing obligations other than a novel to complete and a blog post every other week.

That said, I still must prioritize my time. I have roughly 80 pages left to write before The Oak Lovers is complete. My posts may get shorter. I may have a looming blog deadline and not be at a place where I can leave Carl and Madonna’s world longer than it takes to recycle an old post. My prose may be less than perfect once in awhile. I’m not slacking, and I trust that you will forgive me.

I have a book to finish.

Photo of Kim and her children by Deborah Downes