Ummm, what???
Jan 6, 2006 Race
Oh yeah, and they have the link to prove it: Another reason to boycott Walmart? Like we needed more. Mixed Media Watch points out: Apparently when you go to Wal-Mart’s site to purchase a box set of “Planet of the Apes: The TV Series,†it lists as “similar items†the following titles:
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge
and
Martin Luther King: I Have a Dream / Assassination of MLK
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Madison finally went to sleep
Jan 6, 2006 Writing
We rocked and cuddled and coddled her through her cold and now she’s having trouble staying asleep without someone nearby. I’m hoping to get thirty minutes out of her nap today (her usual nap is an hour) and hopefully if we can muscle through some tearful sessions, she’ll settle down to let herself sleep on her own again. She was up for a couple of hours last night sometime after midnight begging Brett to rock her or make her toast — new habits die hard.
Last night while I waited for Madison to go back to sleep (she tossed and turned between us, whining and fiddling with my pajama buttons to try to wheedle her way to more attention) I was thinking about writing and about my goal this fall, which was to figure out how I write.
The most important thing I learned is that I’m slow. I’m a slow writer. I’m slow in part because of the kids and my job and the house, sure, but mostly I’m slow because I like to mindf*ck everything — it’s what I do, it’s part of writing for me.
I really appreciated what Tamar said in my last entry, “I write best when I have my heart in something. And I can’t muster up that passion for something that not only comes from someone else’s head (because, after all, assignments for pay come from the editor), but goes nowhere and is meant to go nowhere. If I’m going to write without a tangible goal, let it be on a project that gets me fired up.” It was a relief to read that because it summed it up for me.
What I love about writing is making all of the connections between this thing and the other thing and the thoughts I had while driving and a fragment of a conversation the day before. When I’m writing on something it’s in my head all of the time and so I’m living it even when I’m not at my computer.
There’s another Sondheim song (click to download it): Finishing the Hat. I listen to this song a lot because it’s such a beautiful description of the losses and gains of living a creative life. For me, I’ve made a conscious decision not to give into my work as much as I’d like right now but I fantasize about having that time — four hours a day, six hours a day — to just write and not have to come up out of it to make anyone lunch or even to exchange pleasantries. I’d like to spend hours with my attention turned to my projects but not while my family’s needs are so immediate. Someday though and I look forward to it.
“…however you live,
There’s a part of you always standing by,
Mapping out the sky,
Finishing a hat…
Starting on a hat…
Finishing a hat…”
Not now though. The hats must wait.
In any case, even with all the time in the world I would be slow. I like to ruminate on things for hours, I like to let my thoughts scrabble around to dead-ends before making their way back. I don’t mind doing research just to find out there wasn’t a story there after all — I love research.
The other thing I realized is that I write to discover things — about myself, about an idea, about an event — and that once I’ve learned what I set out to learn, it’s hard for me to stick with a project. I always thought I was ambitious and it turns out I am but not in the way that I thought.
I love love love to get published. I love seeing my work in print. But as much as I love it, I’ve discovered I don’t love it enough to stay focused on it. I’m not too thrilled about this. I would like to work harder at getting published but see, then I found out I like to work harder at other things. The problem here is that it doesn’t serve me well not to pursue publication. I need to do both. I need to follow through on some of my ideas and see them to the end. This will make me slower because I’m not accustomed to it. I drop projects like crazy.
Finally the last thing I learned is that I am very protective of my goals. I don’t like to share them because I don’t like people to ask about them. It feels invasive when people want progress reports. Why is this? I guess I’ve been defensive about being so slow. I make excuses instead of just admitting that I take a long time to write. But it’s the process that gives me pleasure so I ought to own up and quit worrying about measuring up to some imaginary standard.
I didn’t much like writing this entry but I did it in the interest of moving on from all of this.
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Since people were curious
Jan 5, 2006 Writing
And I deleted the last entry (I think deleted entries still show up on some rss feed readers though) I’ll tell you more about The Exercise.
The exercise was, I believe, designed to give the newbie writer confidence in her ability to write. Right now I’m really needing someone who can assume I already have that confidence and can take some good, solid criticism. See, my friend Becca is my gold standard for writing help. When I recently showed her an essay in progress her response was this (this is not a direct quote because I had an email malfunction but you should get the gist), “Nothing is working here. You’re going in several different directions and it all falls apart. You could take it this way or you could take it that way but I suggest you go back to the drawing board and freewrite” (here she quoted a writer about freewriting to explain what the goal should be and I wish I could tell you it but I can’t) “and then freewrite again.”
You see? Praise is nice but empty praise is not helpful to me. I don’t need to hear “good try” as much as I need to hear “you can do better and here’s how.”
That is my issue with the exercise. The course is expensive and my writing time is limited. I need to knuckle down and get better and I don’t need (or want) to be cossetted. Well, maybe a little bit. You know, just a touch here and there but not a whole class full of it. I didn’t get anything out of the exercise. Except annoyed.
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Hi, I’m having a fit
Jan 5, 2006 Writing
Madison is sleeping and I should be doing laundry. Or putting something in the crockpot. But I’m not because I’m avoiding the stupid SARK-y assignment from the writing class.
I hate this assignment. It’s stupid. And lame. (Kicking the table, arms crossed, glaring at the computer screen.) Dumb assignment!
It’s assignments like this that keep from writing classes, books on writing, and hanging out with an entire segment of the writing population. I am a Big Old Writing Snob and I don’t like prompts, I don’t like homespun exercises, I don’t like gentle encouragement to let your mind wander freely.
I already know how to freewrite! (She pouts.) I don’t wanna write on that topic! (She whines.) You can’t make me!
I’m such a baby.
But I still don’t want to do it.
I even tried writing about how I don’t want to do it but it got too insulting instead of funny like I’d hoped. And I tried skipping the first half, (which has an assigned topic) to do the second part of the exercise but even that just kinda sucked.
Maybe I’ll just embrace how saccharine it is and see if I can write it sarcastic.
What is it about me that I can’t just do something someone asked me to do even if I think it’s stupid? Why am I such a snob? I mean, it could be enlightening. I might learn something from it. (I doubt it, she sniffs.)
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Tags: Madison