Can Writing Be Therapy?

Check out my explorations of this question in today's vlog.

VLOG!

Hey all, so I'm starting to vlog now!! I'm working out the kinks as I go (aka, next time there will be a stable surface to set the laptop webcam on, and more light) but here's my first real vlog, talking about my first impressions of Minneapolis, getting lot A LOT, and how people look funny when they jog ;-)

"Having it All" - Wisdom From WHITE COLLAR

So, TV screenwriters, sometimes you can just hit the nail on the f'ing head. For example, from a recent episode of USA's White Collar, about a white collar thief, Neil Caffrey, who avoids (more) jail time by working for the FBI. Anyway, check out the wildly perfect convo from this week about what "having it all" means. I agree, Caffrey, that IS pretty much the dream:

Jones (FBI agent): Well, because choices are sacrifices. And, inevitably, that means giving up something that you want for something that you want more. So, now I have to ask... What does "having it all" mean to Neal Caffrey?

Neil Caffrey: Never having to worry about money. Doing something that's meaningful, being surrounded by people I care about and respect, you know. That's pretty much the dream.

Rejection's A Bitch

The process of becoming a writer is often like becoming a Professional Rejectee. It’s a good life skill to have, and even though I’m actually experiencing awesome successful things in my writing career (after YEARS of the rejections!!!), rejection in other forms still abounds, socially and manifold other ways. There's the quiet kind of rejection – where people just don’t notice you at all and you want to shout: “I’m interesting and awesome, I swear!” Moving to a new city where no one knows you is rife with this kind of (perceived) rejection. Then there’s also the loud kind – the blunt NO. My method in general for life the past few years has been to barrel forward, face-plant into a wall of rejection, be knocked to the ground in a kind of bewildered shock (cause you gotta think there’s a chance of being successful if you’re gonna keep that kind of full-speed forward motion going), slowly and dazedly pick myself back up onto my feet, and start going forward again. I can’t decide if this is because I’m a glutton for punishment or if this is just the necessary formula to actually accomplish anything in life.

Sometimes I have such confidence in myself—that I can tackle and be successful at almost anything reasonable I set my mind too. Then there are other times when every little slight or even barest criticism seems to cut to the bone, and you cuddle up in your blankets feeling like a giant uninteresting blob of failure. You wonder how you ever felt extraordinary. Then, if you’re me, you re-dye your hair blue, drink some wine straight from the bottle, and go to sleep. And when you wake up the next morning, things always seem to be better and brighter. One foot in front of the other til you start gathering momentum again ;)

Guest Post Up at The League!!

Check out my guest post: Is This a Kissing Book? at The League of Extraordinary Writers today, in which I discuss (you guessed it!) kissing, action, Twilight, and why I like it when authors show dialogue :D

Stranger To Myself

I wake up at 8am each morning. I just got back from a half hour walk. Like, you know, for exercise. I've been making my bed every day. I ate vegetables for lunch today.

It's official. A stranger has invaded my life or I've been body-snatched!!!

Well, that, or I just moved to a new city and am at this very straaaaaaaaange transition period in my life! And I've finally found a medicine that, for the first time in A DECADE, helps my CFS and allows me to exercise without it putting me in bed for a week. Soooooooo. That's weird. I push my body with exercise... and it doesn't push back. I only need 8 hours of sleep at night instead of 10-12. I was always the kinda girl who woke up at noon.

I'm just so awake and have energy and keep active most of the day. Part of my freaking identity has been inevitably composed in large part by my illness and its limitations. I can't really tell if I'm happy or sad. All my rubrics for understanding the world and my happy-o-meters have been thrown out the window. Dragos and Joseph are still in Romania. I don't know a person in this city, other than online friends, who I'm slowly trying to meet IRL ;)

But I AM being productive. I do feel a bubbling creativity that's pouring into my writing. I go to the corner cafe and read some of my "deep thinking" books each morning. Then I write/edit for a few hours. In three days I've gotten through half my edits.

I come home, rest a little. Maybe go to the store to get more to set up the apartment. Read more. Eat vegetables with rice. At sunset, go for a long walk along the river, the sun shining through the giant leafy trees along the Mississippi. The trees make a canopy over the walkway. It's all so freaking green. There was a cool breeze blowing through my hair as I walked!!!! I just left 105 degree Texas last week, so yeah! the weather here just adds to my bizarre feelings, a little alienation, a little adventure, a lot STRANGE. Albert Camus talks about the Absurd as "an actor without his setting." Yes, I feel like that--like the stage crew stole off with my setting when I wasn't looking!! I'm trying to construct a new one, toss a little structure together in this chaos. Hence the bed-making and routine-creating, I think :) 

I have no idea who I'll be on the other end of this when I'm able to articulate an identity in words again. But I'm optimistic about good things--both good things coming, and good things now.

All Alone in the Big City!

I've been here in Minneapolis a total of 5 days, maybe 6? I've lost track, but it's definitely been one of those weeks that feels longer than normal weeks do. I went and got lost in the city trying to find a bookstore today--always the best reason to get lost :-)  I broke out my street map and found myself again, eventually found the bookstore too. I've been here 5 days or whatever, and I've been to three bookstores and one library. Shocker, I know ;)

Then I went for a walk this evening. Did you know the Mississippi river runs right through Minneapolis? I didn't, before I got here last week. And our apartment is seriously two  blocks from the river. I went out walking on a path along a high up bank. So much greenery! Giant old trees, and the sun was setting through the branches as I walked. Then a nut from a tree fell and landed on my head and I just laughed and laughed. Absurd world we live in! *yes I know I probably looked like a lunatic, laughing my ass off and rubbing my head as I walked down the sidewalk*

It's so bizarre not to know a single person around me. Dragos and Joseph are still in Romania for another week and a half, and it's seriously whacky being so on my lonesome. Not sad really, just STRANGE! At my old coffeeshop where I went for years and wrote my book (and the three starter-books before), everyone knew my name and I knew theirs. I had in-jokes with the baristas. We hung out sometimes outside of the coffeeshop.

Here, I've been frequenting the same cafe every day this week, but I'm not feeling up to being gregarious and trying to introduce myself. This is the first time I've moved to a new place without some mechanism in place to get to know people, like school or a church or a job. I don't know how grown-ups get to know each other and make friends without these things. Guess I'll learn and start coming up with some inventive ways!

In other news, I am being wicked productive on line edits. After two days, I'm 65 pgs through the 300 pg draft, and I gotta say, I'm SO EXCITED about what's happening with this edit round. I may not be the most objective observer, but I feel like MAGIC is going down with this draft! I read the notes from my editor or see how she tweaked a line, and I swear it's like SHE INVADED MY BRAIN and plucked out exactly what I meant but hadn't expressed well! So yeah, every edit round I get more excited about how having a great editor can really shape up a book into something excellent and exciting.