Forget-Me-Nots

So, I started thinking about my own mortality while walking into the hospital for a check-up. As I rode the elevator to the 5th floor where my doctor's office is located, I was not worried about my health, per say, but about the mortality of the things that I do.

Being a parent has caused me to be even more aware of the things in my life that I would like to leave behind for my descendants. For instance, my writing and paintings are definitely something that I would like for my grandchildren to cherish after I am gone.

While sitting in the waiting room, I cracked open one of the last few chapters in my library book Louisiana Women: Their Life and Times, a fantastic compilation of biographical essays about powerful, intellectual Louisiana ladies. Women like Kate Chopin, who lived for a few years just south of where I now call home, helped pave the way for independent women writers. She was, and still is, seen as a fearless person who went against the norm of society and has lived on in pages of novels, short stories, and bios.

In 2010, when being a successful woman is the norm, what does it take to leave a legacy like the one Kate Chopin has left the world? Growing up we are taught that everyone has special qualities. So what is the new requirement for being special enough for a person's books to be read for years and years to come, to be the next Kate Chopin, Ernest Hemmingway, or Robert Penn Warren?

A couple of days ago the muses wiggled their magic wands and filled my head full of story ideas and the ability to edit flawlessly. I guess all things come in due time, but man have I needed a little sprinkling of fairy dust!

I found this interesting and humorous book by Heather Sellers in the Writers Digest online shop on Sunday evening...which is strange in and of itself considering I do not have a Writers Digest subscription nor have I bought one of their magazines in a couple of years. I immediately placed the book on hold at Barnes & Noble. Maybe I should have gotten a copy of the newest digest as well. Hmmm... Of course I had already begun writing again by the time I picked up my new "self-help" book yesterday. Nevertheless, this book is a straight up, rough around the edges, no bs guide to getting up off of your butt (or on your butt for writers) and start actually doing what you love. Between this cute little pocket-sized manual and reading Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times edited by Janet Allured and Judith F. Gentry (a nice jolt of "I am woman, hear me roar), my creative storytelling fire is most certainly lit!

Speaking of the muses and inspiration, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it seems that most of my best ideas spring into being when I am trying desperately to take a nap or getting ready to go to sleep at night. I even get hit with the writing bug while I am reading something else...a book that has no relevance to the subject matter of my little idea bursts. Heather Sellers says "Write what you want to read." Is my brain simply feeling the urge to multi-task?

So, at the moment crisis has been averted and I am back on track. Who knows what tomorrow or even next week will bring. That being said, I will continue to sleep with a stack of books and a #2 BIC mechanical pencil on my bedside table.

Excuses, Excuses...

(Writing's) a lot like painting by the numbers; you may get one corner of the picture just right, but you're nowhere near experiencing the flow and excitement of creation. It's far more important (and constructive) to get the entire tale down on paper, warts and all, then come back and refine it. - Persia Woolley, How to Write and Sell Historical Fiction

"I have too much to do. It's too noisy. My favorite show is on television. I need to cook supper. I'm too tired." These are a few examples of the hundreds of excuses that I tend to make for myself to avert my attention away from editing the stories that I have written.

I mean, I wrote the story. It will be there when I get ready to edit, right? Sure. Unless a natural disaster occurs or the local thief peddles in scribbled-up notebooks, the manuscript will likely remain under a stack of magazines, just where I left it. So why can't I edit my story and get it over with?

My husband took note a few days ago that I had not actually sat in the "writing nook" that I painstakingly put together in our bedroom. The black chair is now covered in stacks of clothes and cat hair. I find my furry friend curled up asleep in my nook 9 times out of 10.

I am, no doubt, going through a phase that most, if not all, writers go through from time to time. I cannot pinpoint if it is a lack of discipline, the unwillingness of taking my job seriously, or if there is an amount of unconscious fear that has built up this barrier in front of me. Quite often I find myself reading the first page of Chapter Ten in Persia Woolley's book, trying to get it to sink in:

It is precisely this challenge, and the discipline required to meet it, that makes the difference between you and the hundreds of wanna-bes who have grand stories and interesting characters in mind but won't commit to treating writing like a job. It takes a combination of dedication, determination and desperation to become a historical novelist,...

So. why is finishing up a story, or writing it to begin with, so damn hard? The concept is there, the research has been done. Is it the fear of failure that plagues me so? Some of these questions cannot be explained in a simple "how to" book.

What do you think?