A New Month, a Fresh Start and Writer's Block

I have the feeling a weight has been lifted. My friend who had the stroke continues to improve, albeit slowly. We do not know how far his recuperation will take him. He is six foot four and cannot use the left side of his body, and has impulse control issues.

There is hope, however. And for now, that is what we will hold onto.

Thank you to those who still check back. I suspect I'll be back to my more normal blogging every week or so, very soon.

A Silly Ramble for Today

Today, I'm thinking of writer's block. For real. I have been kidding around on Facebook about how one can USE distractions to let things percolate and foment. I know the gist of what I want to say, but the words will not come. I want to meet my self-imposed deadline of Pacific Time 9:00 a.m. Noon, my time. I will be up all night I think.

We sit our butts in the chair and try. I wrote about five paragraphs of drivel. Incomprehensible drivel. Yet somewhere in those 450 words, I found about twenty I really like. Twenty words on which I will, I think craft a small, inconsequential release. Yet, perhaps the key to writing for a living is that I NEVER believe any little piece is inconsequential. While I work on it, that one release, be it 300 words or 700, is my novel. It is make or break time. On my release rests the future of this Stanford program.

Do I know that's a crock? Of course. And yet, I know also that putting myself into the work as if my soul is at stake keeps Stanford coming back. I care. I couldn't do this if I were on staff. I'd have to crank it out. They count on me to care more than they do, ironic as that may sound. Their standards are lower for what I do than my own are, and that's a good thing.

Somehow, though, I need to learn to dial it back just one notch. I do not need to make myself crazy. I need to breathe and enjoy this crazy process. I don't need to be crazy. Strange thing, making a living as a writer. Would that it were from my poetry or fiction, but it's not. I write releases and spotlights for programs in engineering, business, science, and international security. It is not glamorous; but I meet extraordinary people. I have to promote their work and try to make others want to study with them, go to seminars conducted by them, take programs online presented by them. I need to make a potential student who is surfing, searching for a certain type of training or, more importantly, education come to Stanford Center for Professional Development.

I try to get engineers to fall in love.

It's not easy; it sure is fun. I forgot that today, that it is FUN to do my job.

I will put the coffee on and stay up until I have a rough draft. I will sleep a couple of hours, get up again and smooth it out. I know it will be fine, but...

What if I blow it? What if they find out I'm a fraud? What if it is not perfect? I may write the perfect party to which no one comes!

We writers are really silly. The conceit. The insecurity. They are bound together in this process -- on a blog, in an essay, published for money, published for free, with or without our byline. We write with the goal to simply knock others out with our wonderfulness. Reach in and touch a soul. Reach in a pocket so they'll take out their money... not glamorous. Even when we say we are writing just for ourselves, if we are putting it online, who are we kidding? We want to be read, and we want people to love what they've read. And there's nothing in the world wrong with that.

I care about lifelong learning. I market only what I think matters; it's how I can agree with myself to market. I learn while I do this. I learn to write better, and I learn about all sorts of wondrous things. I had to make that choice, to write to promote only what I thought was worth promoting. I just couldn't sell water heaters and cosmetics. It wasn't me. And perhaps I would have earned more. So much of life is compromise, learning where our boundaries lie. This is okay; THIS is over "the line." The danger is in judging other people's lines, and in not seeing our own inconsistencies in this writing for money, writing to spec.

So much of writing involves my ego and I can get lost in trying to make something about it far more noble than it is. In the romance of being the writer. Fade out in the garret. I sit in half-light, in my garret window seat, agonizing over one word, chewing on the tip of my quill.

oh. Wait. I have a computer.

So much for the romance of it all. I can wax on forever. I won't. What it boils down to is this: I have to get the thing done so I'd best get to it.

***
My mom called me her biggest project ever. And she kissed me on my nose when she said it. She also told me I was her greatest unfinished work.

I don't know about the greatest part, but unfinished? That part's still true.

Get the coffee, Jeannette, and get to work.