#FinishUrBookFall - Oct. Update

This year instead of NaNoWriMo I’m taking part in a new challenge, #FinishUrBookFall. Since the summer I’ve been alternating between two projects (described here) and at some point I realized that I maybe had enough material for the first to start thinking about it as a collection. Possibly a book? Certainly a chapbook. Then the #FinishUrBookFall challenge came along and I figured this would be a good way to focus my attention and really get some work done on this.

What can I say, I like challenges.

And it’s been working. I have more energy and direction around this project than I’ve had before, I’m seeing things come together. At the same time, of course, I’m visited by doubt. I’m repeating myself (ideas, themes, words) – I have nothing new or worthy to say – my writing is obvious, trite…

Then at the same time I read other people’s collections, ones that are meaningful to me, that have given me inspiration or encouragement, and I see ideas, themes, words repeated… only in their work I see it as resonance, or echoes, or other ways of describing the ways that coming back to something again & again strengthens it, or turns it, or fragments it in ways that allow you to put things back together in new and insightful ways. So maybe mine will be useful to someone else in the same way.

(Of course there are the works I read that are so virtuoso that there isn’t any expectation of approaching, I’m content to merely kneel at their feet…)

I was blessed to see Ada Limón recently at the poetry book club I go to (author of Bright Dead Things, The Carrying). Among the questions she answered were ones on how she forms her collections. So I was blessed not only with her presence overall but also with very specific notes on exactly what I’m curious about right now, resonating with thoughts I’ve had about this. Her process isn’t mine, of course, but I think it’s similar enough in ways that I can get guidance from her words.

I currently have about 20 in close to final form, or if not finished, at least ready for other eyes, and another 20 or so in larval form. Not everything will go in so yes, I think chapbook is the right answer. Though I’ve also been wondering about what is missing, what needs still to be written, so who knows… I think perhaps quite a lot. It looks like I will come to the end of #FinishUrBookFall and see I have at least another year’s writing in front of me, let alone revision. But that’s okay. Already this exercise of thinking about putting together a book has led to good questions and new determination. And I find the more I write the more endurance I have for it, the more drive I have. The more ideas. The more I want to study as well…

Sometimes it feels my body can’t contain all I want to do. I remember this feeling from other times in my life and back then I got overwhelmed, more than once… I know better now how to ride it out, the rhythm of pushing forward and then, maybe not quite pulling back but allowing myself not to push for a while. To rest in the other rhythms of my life, the other things that need doing. It helps also that I’m working with all of me these days too, in fact, that’s the only way I could do this.

So onward I go!

S.A.

Committing to Poetry at Age 47

On the one hand it’s daunting, how little I know about the craft of writing poetry, or even of reading it. I go to these workshops and people speak with such knowledge, sometimes clearly pulling on years of study. Oodles of poets, of theory, of schools of thought. Of their own experience. I’m reading Robert Haas’s book on form and when I do understand what is being talked about it’s clear how much can go into it. Every word, every line. Antecedents and parallels and responses to other people’s work. And I’m stumbling through, a workshop here, book club there, reading an essay about form or craft here and there, there’s so much I don’t know and never can catch up to. And it’s really daunting.

…And at the same time I’m so glad I didn’t have that kind of education, I think I would have gotten myself twisted up and turned away, frozen completely, unable to go on. I’m glad I wrote a lot that wasn’t poetry but somewhat adjacent to it, read a lot just because. I feel I have developed, or am well on my way to developing, my own style – punctuation, line length, rhythm, etc. And I think it would have been a lot harder if I’d been taking classes or doing lots of workshops, trying to take in a hundred pieces of advice. Why? Because I did not stand solid in myself and would have wanted too much to find my way through others’ paths. But I feel solid in myself as a writer now, thanks to hundreds of blog posts and tens of devotions and even tweets, as I try to distill thoughts into 280 characters that don’t offend my ear. And also through my failures: attempting to write/draw children’s books or comics, and then novels. Only to come back to poems, again and again.

I recently received some excellent critical feedback of a few of them – and I can take it now, in a way I couldn’t have five, ten years ago, or even six months ago. It means a lot that I can take it in – disagree in places – and am strong enough in myself for it. This is only possible now that I am living closer to my true self to begin with. I think I might be ready now to take an actual class or commit to a workshop series at some point.

I’m currently working on two projects. The first is a collection of contemporary poems, spanning the last 20 years and set in the U.S. On nature & fear & the city & wonder & the work of figuring things out. Then the second is a new work, set in Bavaria, of a witch and his dragon, or a dragon and xyr witch. I wanted to try my hand at a longer narrative framework with fantastical elements and this is where I was led… It feels way beyond my abilities at the moment but it will also take years to write, I imagine, and I’ll learn what I need to along the way.

Poetically yours,
S.A.

Little More Action

Midday through summer, and marathon training is going well. I've had to shift my schedule around plenty between travel, work, and family, but I've hit all my long runs and all my speed workouts, so I'm feeling pretty solid. Guess it's time to start fundraising.

Writing is feeling more solid these days too. I signed up again for Camp NaNoWriMo, this time setting my goal in minutes rather than words, since I needed to revise and research and brainstorm above all else. That's been pretty consistent too, and I'm getting interested and excited again vs. just confused and overwhelmed.

My summer is heavily fueled by music, as always. Some familiar albums giving new energy -  Macklemore & Ryan's "The Heist", and Grimes' "Art Angels". Then albums new to me - "Calentura: Global Bassment" (remixes of classic Fania releases), and Bomba Estéreo's "Amamecer: Remixed". Fantastic electro grooves, perfect for digging into words or steps.

And very grateful for Spotify for introducing me to new stuff I would not have heard otherwise:

Mona Haydar's "Barbarian"

Madame Gandhi's "Top Knot Turn Up"

Lulu Be's "Rude Tings"

FAKA's "Uyang'khumbula"

Hope your summer is treating you well!
Annie

It Must Be Spring, I'm Setting Goals

Even if it is currently snowing AGAIN.

I've gotten twitchy about setting goals publicly over the last year, especially ones to do with running, but things have been going well the last couple of weeks (slow, slow, but still improving) and I've begun to set my sights forward.

So I think I'm going to shoot for the Hot Chocolate 15K in November.

I've run this before and enjoyed the race. It's a good distance, at a good time in the year. No time goals this time around, I just want to be able to work up to that distance again and have a race on the calendar.

And in non-running goals, I've signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo this month. You may remember that National Novel Writing Month (November) is a world-wide writing challenge of 50,000 words for the month. Camp NaNoWriMo happens twice a year, in April and July, and you set your our challenge for the month, be it time spent or words or pages or even specific projects.

I've set my goal as 15,000 words for the month. I've done a lot of research and revising and transcribing over the last four months but very little new material in that time, and it's been hard to get started again. Excruciatingly hard. Then Camp NaNo came up in a couple of different Facebook groups I'm in - I hadn't even been aware of it prior to last week - and I thought this might be the challenge I need to get back into a regular writing (vs. revising/research) habit. So far it seems to be working. (Cross fingers.)

Hmm... perhaps I need to set some kind of challenge for myself for the garden?

Not happy about today's snow,
Annie

It's Been A Tough Week

I'm so glad to get to the end of this week.

Quick reminder: I did NaNo last year all by hand, and have spent the last three months transcribing those pages, researching, and editing - but I've had no new material (on that book at least). So I was excited to jump back in over my birthday mini-vacation... but no. And then not in the days after. I couldn't even get myself to try. Convinced I had nothing to offer and nothing I've written is in the direction I want to take it in anymore...

So this week I made myself start again. Just write something. Anything. For fifteen minutes at a time, that's all. I could do that, right?

Oh. my. God. So painful. It reminded me that writing truly is a muscle, one that has atrophied over the last three months, just as my running endurance has. But I made myself go on, moving pen over page. Dry, dull, though at least I ended each session knowing what was coming next... a series of sticky notes the breadcrumbs to get me started the next day. But nothing interesting or useful for a few days.

And then? Maybe a little glimmer of something interesting? Maybe only a marsh-light but still more than I had? I'll keep following it and see where I end up. But oh so daunting after having felt so sure of this in the fall.

And I need to read more of what I aspire to in my writing. Lately it's been a lot of escapist stuff (end of winter, y'all). I'm okay with that but it's not where my own writing lies.

My movement towards writing was interrupted a few days by a doozy of a migraine. Typically I get auras, maybe some pain - that's not too bad as I get older and especially not if I take something right at the start of the aura, and then a period of impaired thinking for a while after. Nothing horrible, I just can't focus well or think as easily or quickly as I'm used to. If it's a really bad one I might have some numbness around my mouth, but that hasn't happened in a while. Air pressure and hormones are the usual triggers for me, sometimes light. But seriously, my migraines are not usually a big disrupter in my life.

But Monday. Woah. Almost as soon as I woke up the aura was on me and I could tell it was going to be serious. I didn't realize it would be so trippy. Memories, memories of dreams, memories within dreams, random sense impressions all colliding together, even as I was getting myself and the kids dressed and moving towards school. As if my brain was bifurcated and all that was happening on a second level. I could focus on what needed doing immediately, but only that - no planning, thinking ahead, decision making. The kids were asking questions (and both talking at once, as usual) and I had to let them know I wasn't going to be able to explain anything to them or answer anything not relating to right in front of me, right now. Got them to school (did not drive, we took the train), and then came home to cancel phone meetings and let my boss know I would not be coming in, then spent the rest of the day on the couch reading - if I was going to be in an alternate head space I wanted it to at least be a cohesive world something one created, rather than the fragments of mine I was experiencing and didn't know if I could trust.

Things mostly cleared by mid-afternoon but I was wiped out by then and still not certain of my thinking. I went into work the next day but only lasted a couple of hours before another aura started and I headed back home, though it was nothing near as painful or strange as the day before. And the rest of the week has been trying to recover from all that, going to bed earlier, drinking more water, trying to eat well. I'm still feeling a little fragile though not horribly so.

I don't know what triggered this - it's been maybe twenty years since I've had a migraine this bad. But I'm not counting out the news that exploded in the queer romance world.

It's been awful. I suspect the majority of readers of this blog know nothing about this and I'm not going to try to explain. The rest of you either know all about it or are Russian bots, based on my stats. But it's just been... ugh. Vile behavior from an author exposed, which then led to the exposure of awful behavior from an editor and a publisher - all of whom had power in this corner of the writing world, the corner I consider home.

I have no skin in this - I'm just a little fangirl over on the sidelines who dreamed of maybe someday submitting something to that publisher because they were the first queer romance press I encountered back when I was all *starry eyed* THIS EXISTS?! Since then I'd heard enough murmurs about that publisher and encountered enough other presses to be over my hero-worship but it still feels rotten to see what's been exposed (and what's been unleashed afterwards as people find out and react all over the place). All the more so because an author I truly admire and had some exchanges with was at the center of exposing things, and my heart hurts for him and everyone else who has been hurt by Riptide and Sarah Lyons and the people going by the name Santino Hassell.

Some good is coming from this, thankfully, I've seen more lifting up of authors of color in the past week than before and there have been some amazing outpourings of generosity and effort across Romancelandia to the authors affected by all this, but... ugh. Shit shouldn't have had to happen for growth to occur.

But hey! Aren't our teenagers amazing! (Speaking of something else that shouldn't have had to happen...)

Sad and tired and wanting to put my arms around the world,
Annie

Birthday Roundup - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

My treat for myself this birthday was two days off - no work, no kids (well, during the day at least). I should have also put, no expectations, but more on that later.

Things I was looking forward to:

• Going running after I drop the boys off - so then I can come home and take my own sweet time cleaning up and getting dressed.
• Re-shelving my books!
• Reading!

Other things I had planned: Way too long a list.

What actually happened:

My first day off was mucky to start. Rain into snow, with a nasty wind coming off the lake. So no running for me. Instead I finally used the exercise bike I'd assembled 10 days before (a Christmas present from my parents).

I've been needing this for a couple of years. When we moved I lost easy access to the gym (we also cut back on spending). The first year I continued to run in the mornings, even muscling through the winter months, but as I've focused more on my writing I've found it harder and harder to keep a consistent exercise schedule, and I've missed it. Physically for sure, and mentally as much so. So it was a big deal to ask for this (and took me months to actually give them the model info).

Before I got to that point in the day, though, I had to deal with my head.

Birthdays always trip me up emotionally. I don't know why, but they do. And usually well in advance of having them. This year, though, I had been looking forward to it, so I wasn't expecting my first response once I dropped the kids off and was heading home to be a pervasive sense of "I suck and nobody likes me."

Looking back I can see what led to this but what I knew at the time was, no way do I want to sit in this all day, and, screw trying to understand why I feel this way, I just need to take action to stop it.

So I do what I do when I feel isolated and alone. I emailed friends to set up phone dates. I confirmed movie plans. I stayed off of social media.

(I've written elsewhere about my frustration that I can't easily handle impromptu social interaction, so I'm not going into that here, but, no, I could not "just pick up the phone".)

And then I had a lovely day re-shelving my books and finally using the exercise bike and reading. Just like last year. Oh, and going to see Hamilton, which was The Dude's birthday present to me this year. (Oh. My. God. I have all the feels about this musical. Don't get me started.)

Then the next day dawned bright and sunny and I could go for my run and come home and laze about and read and eat chocolate before I even took my shower and it was lovely...

Until I thought, well, it's time to look at that list of Things I Was Going To Do With My Time Off.

Never do that. Not for a birthday vacation. Not ever, really.

My problem was that almost everything on that list was writing related, so in theory I was looking forward to it all... but in reality I have routines set up for my writing and outside of those routines I find it really hard to work on it. And having two days off is WAY outside of my routines.

Plus I just finished a massive chunk of work on it and maybe should have planned to give myself a little bit of a break...?

Long story short, I spent the rest of my day trying to force myself to be productive and failing, and that's never good for my head. And not a good way to end my time off.

Next time, I'm setting my to-dos like this:

RUN.
EAT CHOCOLATE.
READ.
Maybe putter a bit if it makes me feel good.
BUT MOSTLY READ.

Learn from my mistakes so you don't make them,
Annie

I Blush

It's been quite a week for outside affirmation, and it's only Friday.

One is a work-related invitation for some months from now, so I'm not jinxing that by naming it here.

One is very private (blush) so I'm definitely not sharing that here.

One I've been sharing all over the place (you may have already seen it); a devotion I wrote for work has gotten more attention than usual. In particular, I had the unexpected honor of having it read out loud at our weekly staff meeting.

I have noticed that the more I risk in these devotions - by being more personal, more emotional - the greater the response. That's a nice affirmation of what I've been trying to do in my writing and in my life: to be more brave, to allow myself to be vulnerable.

But it was also surprisingly gratifying to hear it read out loud to me.

There's a stylistic gap between the writing I did until about, oh, ten years ago, and the writing I do now. That's fine, I understand that, my form and my intent have changed so it makes sense my style would too. But I've missed aspects of my earlier writing and I've been trying to find ways to bring it back, but into these new forms.

When I heard that devotion read out loud, I heard echoes of my earlier writing - and that buoyed me. It gave me hope that I might be on the right track after all.

A small victory? Perhaps. But I will grab it and tuck it away to remember for when I'm feeling writer misery again.

Saving some sunshine for a rainy day,
Annie

A Month Later, A Month Wiser (A Month More Ambitious...)

I had big plans.

I was going to knock out the first draft of this novel by the end of March. Or did I say the end of February? Whatevs. Clearly I was on writer's high. I think that's related to runner's high? 'Cause I've made the same kind of pronouncement about my running goals too, only to have it fall short of reality. Miles short.

After the glories of NaNo I floundered through pretty much all of December. I was having trouble figuring out a new writing schedule, for sure, but I also wasn't sure what I should be focusing on. Typing up my handwritten pages? Editing while typing or after? Writing new material? More research? All of that needed to happen. Eventually I settled down to typing up my pages without trying to significantly edit or write new material, and instead just keeping track of any new ideas and the changes I want to make.

And then...

I was chatting a bit with a friend on Twitter about wanting to see alt-history where the Aztecs defeated the Spaniards AND the resulting technological and social development was not along European lines. And I kept thinking about it, and then because neither of us have enough to do I suggested a writing challenge: to come up with a short story, set in that world, in six months.

And then an offhand comment of his made me think that this could fit into the story world I am currently working on. Since I had just come to the realization (yet again) that these books I have in mind are going to be more demanding than I previously thought (both world-building and stylistically), why not pull this in too? And thankfully I have calmed down the thoughts about needing to get this done by the time I'm... whatever age I'm fixating on at the moment.

Fairly quickly I had mapped out a set of questions for myself, avenues to explore, resources to investigate. I have some things already in mind... and my existing characters seem to be taking it in stride. Whew.

Happy writer wriggles. I feel like a pup given a new toy.

So I guess now I have bigger plans. I'll keep on typing up my pages through January and February, make notes for new stuff, get some more research done, and then use March as my own personal NaNo. Since it's my birthday month and I like giving myself challenges as gifts, obviously. And then... cycle repeat, probably, since it seems to be a cycle that works for me. And at some point things will get finished. Probably. Hopefully.

Still wriggling with writing pleasure,
Annie

NaNo, Now What?

I did this NaNo thing last month, 50,000+ words when previously I'd never managed more than 12,000 in that time.

Even starting the month I didn't think I would be able to, but then I switched to writing by hand, which you'd think would take longer, but 1) I write pretty fast by hand (not that anyone but me can read my writing when I'm going that fast, and all the personal shorthand doesn't help), 2) I can take it anywhere with me, and 3) I don't edit as I go, which I do when composing by keyboard. I do all my other writing this way, I don't know why I'd gotten into the habit of something different for my fiction.

Plus I got connected with some other writer types - through the Chicago NaNo Facebook group, through Twitter, through emails with the all of two people I know in real life who write fiction - and that gave me inspiration to keep trying as well.

But even so I was amazed at what happened over the course of the month. I've heard NaNo described as a gym for writers and that was what happened for me. My sit-my-butt-in-one-place-and-just-write muscles got stronger. Like, ten times their size. And I wasn't as worried about being able to "come up with something good" either. Hell, it didn't matter. I just had to come up with something - and I got better at doing that too - time and editing will sort out what's good and what isn't, and what has the germ of something good but needs a lot more work to let it flower.

Since I've been working on this novel for over a year (NaNo was a way for me to jumpstart the total rewrite I needed to do thanks to a change in POV and some pesky paranormal stuff that demanded to be made more prominent - thus necessitating total change in backstory and plot details as well, thank you oh so much), I do actually have an idea of what happens in this story overall. So I know, for example, that I'm two scenes away from the end of Act 1 at this point and that I'm probably a third of the way through the whole thing. That is, a lot more writing still to be done.

My secondary goal for the month was to finish the first act, so after taking a few days off to just not think about it, I plan to keep going at a somewhat more moderate pace until I've done that. Then start the process of typing in all those lovely handwritten pages and I'll be editing on the fly as I do that.

And then another push for act two, and then another for act three... I want to finish this first draft by the end of my birthday month, four months from now. And I know there are plenty of people who would say however long it takes is fine... but no. I have more stories to tell. (Already thinking about next year's NaNo...)

But I can't say strongly enough how huge it was for me to "win" NaNo. Kind of thinking of myself as a real writer now... And I don't want to lose that, no way, no how.

I may have to be a complete dork and put up my winner's certificate where I can see it every day.

What it feels like to want something so much,
Annie

NaNoWriMo!

It's National Novel Writing Month and a whole bunch of us writer types are signed up to write 50,000 words this month on whatever project we've gotten it into our heads to do.

There's an official webpage and all, and Twitter threads and Facebook groups, national and local, and oh, all kinds of ways to connect with other writers doing this. In good and bad ways.

My project this year is the rewrite of the novel I was working on over this past year. Over the summer I realized I needed to change the point of view it was in, and once I got over the heartbreak of seeing eight months' work wither and die, I got excited about casting a critical eye on it in regards to plotting and character goals/motivations.

Of course in that process some elements I'd previously seen as, oh, window-dressing, decided that they were integral to the story I really wanted to write. So basically it's a whole new novel.

To my surprise I've gotten a good start, hitting my daily word goals. Just a couple of days ago I thought there was no way I could do it, and if I'd kept to my previous work method I couldn't. But for this month I'm writing loose and easy, all long-hand - no editing! We'll see if I can keep it up.

This is gonna be hard, I'm not going to lie. But I'm feeling game. You won't see much of me on Facebook this month but these days I'm far more active on Twitter anyway and you can find me there @AEllisC, hanging out with queer romance writers/readers and other interesting cats. And actual cat photos. And foxes. And red pandas. Who knew?

May need a hand massage when this is through,
Annie

Starting Over

Welp, I've realized I need to rewrite my novel. All of it. (I realized I needed to change the point of view.) Gah.

I knew I was going to have to do some massive reworking - and making this change will allow me to address some other issues I was having with it - I just didn't think it would involve rewriting the whole thing. Thankfully I have a sense of how to start. Because otherwise I really would feel thoroughly effed.

Right now I need to be focusing on the marathon anyway, what with less than two months to go... and I have a baby quilt overdue... and school is about to start which always takes more time and energy than it feels it should... all of which is to say I don't see myself plunging into this rewrite in the next two months. But that doesn't feel good either.

So, I've decided this year to tackle National Novel Writing Month again. Or NaNoWriMo, as they put it. November - 50,000 words, 30 days. And use that time to tackle my rewrite.

And in the meantime I will prepare - more research and writing exercises. I've got my list and have started to work through it and am getting excited.

I have no idea if I'll manage the word count. It's so out of my normal writing rhythm it seems impossible. But why the hell not try. It's not as if I have anything to lose, after all.

(And if you're doing NaNoWriMo too, you can find me on there as A Crow, Chicago. I'd love to have company.)

Yours in words,
Annie

Kind Of Like Covering Your Eyes But Still Peeking Through Your Fingers

I'm currently immersed in my novel-writing and it is wonderful, yes: fascinating, exciting, affirming. It is also sometimes overwhelming and occasionally scary. Scary because I feel so much about what I'm doing - lots of different emotions to deal with - can I hold them all and keep working? Keep going about the rest of my life?

I now have more compassion for previous times in my life when I stopped working on various projects. I had not yet developed the stamina I have now, the mental/spiritual fortitude to keep going or to stand firm in the face of fear or the tumult of other emotions. And the certainty, learned from experience, that no, I will not actually fall apart, though it might feel that way sometimes. I also didn't have the repertoire of little tricks I now have to just keep going regardless...

While there are frustrations in never feeling I have the time I want, in some ways it is also a... blessing? My moments of creative exertion are hard fought for, carefully guarded, and occasionally thwarted, but they are also short. I barely have time to get itchy and fearful before my timer goes off and I need to take care of the next thing. I tell myself these short intervals are training for someday managing longer ones. (I pray someday there will be longer ones.) Of course these short bits also mean I have to be ready to jump on them when they arrive. Go!

One of my nicknames at home is "one-track Annie". This refers to my ability to never forget what I was going on about in the face of interruptions. I can file away a phrase, an idea, a feeling I need to explore and then come back to it when I need to or when the opportunity presents itself. What can be an irritating conversational habit that I need to guard against (hence the nickname - it wasn't a compliment) is proving essential in moving my story forward. (It's also very handy when parenting small children - they have honed this skill in me to a razor's edge.)

I'll tell you, this writing stuff, it's a trip, for sure.

Composedly (ha!),
Annie

The Writing Life

It's been about a year and a half since I started writing more seriously, and I thought I'd give an update on what I've been working on, especially since you all don't see any of it here.

I started one novel and laid it down. (I couldn't see my way forward at the time but have had some ideas since then.)

I then directed much of my attention on poetry, along with more focused journaling (with an eye to using more of it in some way, some day).

And then I surprised myself by starting a new novel (requiring lots of research, alas). So the poetry is stepping back for now.

It's a continuous struggle for time, a tug of war between running and writing. I need both. I'm still trying to figure out what's the minimum I need with both so that I have a better idea of how to flex when things get busy. I suspect my ultra plans will be suspended for a while, again.

Have I mentioned that I'm slow at both? I would find it funny if it wasn't simultaneously so frustrating. My output is severely hampered by my lack of speed, and I have SO MANY things I want to do with both.

Well, I suppose it's the doing that's most important.

One page, one foot in front of the other,
Annie

Monster Writing

Well, I went to the poetry workshop last night, and it was really good.

The Poetry Foundation offers workshops on a regular basis - it's part of their free adult education offerings. (I attend their monthly Book Club.) Past workshops have been on forms - such as sonnets or eclogues - or on issues such as voice or description. There's a set format to the workshop, which I learned last night:

• discussion of the form/issue;
• reading and discussion of poems exemplifying that form/issue;
• opportunity to write (given a set assignment);
• sharing your writing - later, via email - either what you wrote in the session as is or after continued work.

I enjoyed the discussion (I also felt it was a step up from the Book Club discussions, perhaps because everyone there last night is a writer) and was excited by the work I got down. Thanks to the constraints set by the assignment, I ended up going in a somewhat different direction than I'd expected - which then provided me with a possible solution to a problem I'd been having with another poem.

So now I have two weeks to work on this before sharing and I may end up getting some feedback on it - I haven't found a writers group to be part of yet so I'm curious about what I might hear, from the facilitator (who also leads the Book Club) if no one else. Feedback is such a tricky thing to negotiate - you really need to find the right people to be your readers - and without being in a writing program I'm not even sure how to find the right people. But I don't have much at the moment that I would even want to have feedback on, so I can afford to take my time and see what comes my way. At least for now.

Looking for the next workshop -
Annie

We'll See

I'm attending a poetry workshop tonight at the Poetry Foundation, my first ever. I have no idea what to expect. It's on hybrid forms of poetry ("forms that trouble, cross, and blur literary genre boundaries"), inspired by a recent exhibit, "Monster Roster: Existentialist Art in Postwar Chicago" at the Smart Museum. We had homework to prepare in advance: to see the exhibit and take notes on everything that struck us - the art, certainly, but anything else noteworthy we experienced while there.

The exhibit itself was remarkable and I think I will be absorbing it for a while, especially as I've started painting again. I'm nervous about the workshop. I haven't shared any of my recent work and my writing process is so slow (multiple rounds of working and reworking) that I'm sure I wouldn't feel comfortable sharing anything I write tonight, tonight. But I've been wanting to take part in a workshop and everything lined up for this one - the timing (usually their workshops are on Saturday mornings), the topic, the exhibit - so I'm putting on my "big girl pants" and showing up, regardless of what happens.

Venturing out,
Annie

Learning

I've been studying poetry earnestly since sometime last fall, reading as much as I can across a variety of styles and cultures.

I haven't had much formal education in poetry. I remember reading Ted Hughes, Robert Frost, John Donne, and of course Shakespeare in high school. In college I took a course in 18th century American literature which introduced me to Emily Dickinson. At some point I started reading the Austrian poet Erich Fried.

Somehow while in college I managed to get on the editorial board of a literary journal, The Siren, and so for a couple of years I was reading what my classmates were writing (and had a couple of poems published myself).

And then after college I remember frequenting an independent feminist/LGBT library in Washington, D.C. where I found some African-American women poets: Nikki Giovanni, June Jordan, and Becky Birtha.

Over the years I've kept a binder of poems I've come across that spoke to me - by poets I've named above, and a hodgepodge of others.

I used to feel limited by my lack of formal literary education, but lately - as I've been filling in the gaps (and the internet is great for this) - I've been grateful. It means all my reading is framed through the questions I have about the poems, and not what anyone thinks I ought to know about them. Most of my questions are very basic: What do I like in this poem? What don't I like? Why? And then, what else might be going on around the circumstances of writing this - historically, culturally, personally? What might this poem be responding to? And always with an eye to my own writing.

I'm lucky also to be in Chicago with the excellent Poetry Foundation just a few blocks from me at work. I've been going to their monthly Library Book Club sessions, which allows me to explore a manuscript in some depth, occasionally to hear from the author in person, and to be among other people who are thinking hard about poetry as well. The first time I went I was so excited to be part of an actual serious discussion about literature I could barely contain myself - so different from any of the book groups I've tried to be part of in the past. After a couple of sessions I can now manage to not be overwhelmed with my enthusiasm. And of course their website is a treasure trove of information.

I know my study is paying off when I can read poems and have a sense of what I might do differently, when I can look at an old poem of mine and see not only its shortcomings but also how I might make it better. And I am beginning to feel that I am developing my own voice.

I do not feel adequate to much of what I want to say, but as I study and write I trust I am becoming more so.

Ever curious, ever learning,
Annie

The Writing Life

Longtime readers of my blog will remember that I haven't always written only about running, or even mostly about it. Other regular topics have included my quilting projects, baking, Scary Movie Month, stuff I've read that has made an impression on me, and odds and ends about my day to day life, especially the kids. So it shouldn't be a huge surprise that I've decided to start writing about another topic that I spend a lot of time doing and thinking about. Namely, writing.

Of course, I have already written about this, but only to say that I have been. And I still don't intend to share any details of the content of my writing. That I think needs to stay within the confines of those pages until I'm ready to have constructive feedback on it - and honestly this blog won't be the method I choose for that feedback.

But I do think it will be useful to me, and hopefully interesting to you, for me to share some of my process around writing. So from time to time I will pull back that curtain.

As you may recall, I gave myself a year to explore what form best suited me. I was surprised to find myself not that interested in writing non-fiction or memoir, but rather full of story ideas, and I started a novel.

Lovely, yes? Understandable, yes? Everyone understands novels, even if you don't tend to read them. And it's easy to mark progress - so many words written, so many chapters completed. Even if you have to throw some out and start again from time to time.

However, as I have continued to allow myself to write and read what I want, I have found myself more and more drawn to poetry. Oh, I was not happy when I realized that. There is so very much bad poetry out there.

And people are not generally neutral about poetry, especially anything at all challenging. I've found that they tend to come at it the same way they come at modern/contemporary art or jazz. (Two other art forms I love.) That is, with a lot of distrust, scorn, and dismissal. When not outright hatred.

I don't know why I was so surprised by my return to poetry; I did, after all, write an entire masters thesis using stories, essays, and poetry to explore my topic. My tastes in poetry have changed since then, though (as have my tastes in music and art, for that matter), so it's not just a question of picking up where I had left off. And the world of poetry is also very different from back then. I have so much to learn...

And that thought, while daunting, is also luscious. Mmm, poetry...

Annie

What I've Been Up To (Part 3B)

Back to the writing. Sometime in June I had the thought, when I'm dying, what will I most regret not having done? And the answer was immediate: Not writing the book(s) I always thought I would. Because I have always assumed that I would write one book at least, someday. I just always thought it would come from whatever work I was doing. Since that wasn't happening, I thought I'd better just start writing, instead.

Once I allowed myself the time to just write whatever I wanted it didn't take long to realize that I had a novel I wanted to get out. And once I allowed myself that, all kinds of memories and ideas came pouring in. In October I even uncovered a cache of story ideas and beginnings from ten years ago, the last time I took a writing class, including one that was eerily like the novel I'd started three months before. I guess that idea decided I was still the right person for it.

Of course all this gives me permission to read more! And with that the realization that there were books I had not been allowing myself to read, out of wanting it too much, without knowing that was my thinking ("This is the sort of stuff I want to write, but I could never write that, so I'm not going to read it...") Funny how we work against ourselves, yes? So I'm enjoying reading novels again.

I do not think I would believe I could see a longer work of fiction through to its end if it were not for marathon training, and running in general.* For knowing the results of putting in daily effort, one step in front of the other. For learning how to build habits, outside of will power. For setting concrete long-term goals - goals that no one but I care about and no one but I am paying attention to - and seeing them come to fruition. It's exciting, and inspiring. Funny to think I can be an inspiration to myself.

With determination,
Annie

*I have written longer non-fiction works in the past, as well as short stories, though have not tried to see them to publication. Some time soon I want to look through that cache I found and see if I can do anything more with any of it.

What I've Been Up To (Part 3)

What I have been doing these last four months is writing. In fact, I've been working on a novel.

Back in June I decided it was time to start taking my writing more seriously, and I gave myself a year to write whatever, to figure out through writing what form I was most drawn to. (Some background: I have always thought I would write a book... someday.) I assumed that form would end up being nonfiction: essays, perhaps, or memoir. I was surprised to find out as I worked that I had a novel taking form. I've been working on it now since July.

I spent a number of months trying to figure out a writing routine: times of day, by hand or on the computer, that sort of thing. Not unlike trying to figure out a training routine! This wasn't easy with marathon training going on as well. Then at the beginning of November, with the marathon over, I decided to take part in a writing challenge, the National Novel Writing Month. Right from the start it was clear I wasn't going to be able to meet the word counts, but focusing on my writing for the month showed me what routines and methods will work for me.

I don't expect I'll finish this novel any time soon, so while I am letting people know that I'm working on it, I'm not giving out any details. I'm also developing some other projects, so I have something to turn to when I'm feeling stuck or disheartened at my slow pace on the book ("A month's work and it's in the wrong direction!" Yes, I did have that happen already.) Capturing ideas, taking notes, collecting scribbles. Saving newspaper clippings! All things I have always done but with no clear end in mind.

I'm having fun. It's not easy, of course - I can see why I haven't settled down to this before now. But I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing.

With great satisfaction,
Annie