A donkey and a carpenter and a guy named Oswald walk into a bar…

That’s the title of my latest post over at The Vox Pop Network. You should go read it. It’s right over here. I give you a taste:

A few months ago on an espresso high, I was reorganizing my bookshelves in the middle of the night when I came across good old Ozzie. Chambers, that is. I read My Utmost For His Highest religiously in college (that was, um, seventeen(ish) years ago). Like most Christians in America, I set my copy next to the toilet for those brief moments of dailyâ€¦solitude. Feeling a rush of nostalgia, I snuggled into the couch in the quiet of my basement, flipping through to all the underlined passages that addressed my struggles at nineteen years old.

To find out what happens next, go here!

You may recognize the beginning of that post from the one I wrote here just a few days ago. If you read the first post, and then go read the Vox Pop post, you will see the lovely transition from draft to completed project.

The first draft I wrote quickly and without thinking too much about it. Maybe it took twenty minutes to do, including the formatting and the actual posting. I knew there was something else in there I wanted to say, but didn’t have time to develop it.

Later I thought it would make a good post for The Vox Pop, but there is where it got ugly: I had an expectation that because I had already written a draft, I would be able to finish it off quickly and move on to something else. To the contrary, I spent the entire three hours of my writing afternoon working on that essay, and when my time was up it was still not fit to publish. Because the creative juices would not obey me, I was hugely frustrated. In fact, I sent off a few Eeyore-type “I suck as a writer” IM’s involving F-words to anyone who happened to be online at the time (uh, sorry about that, friends).

It was a good reminder that I should not walk into a writing project with such arbitrary expectations.

The two biggest challenges for me in writing are endings and titles. I want a title that catches your attention, and I want an ending that punctuates without tying a neat little bow on top. Ongoing life is hugely unresolved, yet my early draft work almost always includes a version of “…and she lived happily ever after.”

This essay was no exception. It’s almost like I need to get the fantasy out of my head, the wish that conflict would be resolved in a 30-minute sitcom or a 500-word essay. Sometimes I write conflict resolution into the essay when it hasn’t actually resolved yet, and when I read over it I’m like, WTF? Who is this woman with all her problems solved? Who put this in here?

So at the end of my three hours I closed my laptop and went home, feeling like a failure.

It wasn’t until the kids were in bed that I had enough head space to process through the essay again, and this time I could see things so clearly! I chopped, I reworked, I added, and then… I sat again and waited for the ending to come to me. Always with ribbon and bow in hand, I want a nice little story ending. Finally I realized I could just chop off the last paragraph I was working on and *poof,* the ending you see is the ending you get. No moral. No lesson. No you-should-be-like-me. No summary wrap-up that insults your intelligence. Just, an end.

I was giddy. It was fantastic. I read it over and over. I hit “publish.”

We creatives are so moody, aren’t we?

The post that started out rational, and then, well, I won’t give it away….

Last night I was out with a couple friends I haven’t seen for a long time, and one of them asked me how the writing was going. It was a good time to ask the question since I have been pondering that very thing for several weeks now, especially in preparation for setting goals for the new year.

Talking about it proved to be more productive than thinking about it.

I’ve lost much of my drive to write, lately, and there are two reasons I am considering as the cause: Am I burned out? If so, maybe I should take a break. Or, am I bored because I’ve come to the end of my natural ability? If so, I need to press in to new challenges.

But as I described these scenarios out loud to my friends, another possibility occurred to me. What I think might be happening, is that I’m tired of talking about myself. Really. I’m over it. You will not see me selling my story to the tabloids for 1 million dollars.

I have other things I’m interested in writing about: things I hear about, things I read online, thoughts on books I read or music I listen to, questions about politics. I have a long list of web pages bookmarked on my computer under “blog this.”

The problem? Several things. First, writing about something other than myself requires more brain power, more thought, more consideration, more time in The Zone – none of which I feel I have at the moment. Sometimes I put stuff out there that makes me cringe, because I know that given a little more time and a little less distraction, I could come up with something a little less cliche and a little more brilliant.

I become jealous of other people who seem to have more time to make it work, or who have more talent to write excellently within the little time they have. I become dissatisfied with my lack of time, and it turns to bitterness that I then take out on my family. I can easily lose sight of the conscious choices I’ve made and the priorities I’ve set.

Secondly, writing about stuff that’s more outside of myself feels like a departure from the identity of The Pile I’m Standing In. Not a bad thing (in fact, some might be thinking IT’S ABOUT TIME), but something that’s out of my element. I am, after all, a narcissistic artist type, so making it more about something besides me is a little threatening.

Thirdly, I’m afraid I won’t be interesting. I can drone on and on about my anger or depression or my challenges as a parent because I know somebody out there relates to me and finds my struggle somehow helpful or encouraging, if not at least comforting at the thought of not being alone. But what if all the other stuff I have to say is just not interesting?

I think at this very moment as I write this, I may be taking myself too seriously. After all, why not just write what I feel like writing? Why make a big production out of it? But in thinking about my goals for the year, I want to consider some writing goals, and in order to do that I need to figure out what I want. And right now I feel like I don’t know what I want. I feel trapped in the land of Preschooler Motherhood and I will never escape to Adulthood again. I feel like I will never have time to become the writer I know I can be.

Whine. Whine. Whine.

Complain. Complain. Complain.

Maybe I’m not done writing about my stupid boring life, yet.

Did I mention I was on my period? One should never try to set goals while on her period.

And you’re welcome for that TMI.

Four Star Hospitality

My latest post is up at the Vox Pop Network. Titled Four Star Hospitality, it is about my recent dining experience at Salty’s on Alki, and how it inspired me to be friendlier. Here is an excerpt:

And when I say they smiled and greeted us, Iâ€™m not just referring to a pass-by smile on their way to the kitchen. The food prep cooks called out to us from over the counter; waiters stopped collecting their plates to smile and say hello; a bus boy stopped his work, turned from his table, and greeted us as we walked by; a second hostess on her way back to the podium stepped aside, smiled, and said hello.

I wrote this one pretty quickly and in very few drafts. In fact, I think my initial free-write was pretty dern close to what I published, save the ending. I generally have a difficult time ending an essay like this one without putting it in a cute little box with a neat bow on top. It irks me when things feel that ‘wrapped up.’

I also had a slight challenge with tone. At one point I realized I was getting preachy, in a You Should Really Be Doing This Better kind of way. That irks me too, so I had to bring it back around to me and my own experience. And then I have to walk that fine line between telling a story from my perspective versus making it all about me.

I hope I succeeded in the first thing.

Some days it’s better to stay in denial…

I cross-posted one of my recent essays over at A Wild Ride, you can check it out here. I posted it just as it was on This Pile, but I changed the title. Sometimes when I can’t think of a creative title, I just slap something down because I’m anxious to get a post up. It wasn’t until later that I thought of a better title than “Cue eerie music in the background…”

October’s theme at A Wild Ride is sleep, so if you have children with challenging sleep issues, you should check back there from time to time.

Why I would duck and run if I saw you at the market.

I ran into a woman at Fred Meyer a couple months ago. We were both dropping off our kids at the while-you-shop daycare, and I said something to her about how nice it is to be able to shop without distraction. We talked for a few minutes, and then she commented on how I looked familiar to her. After rattling off a few places we might have met, she finally mentioned one of the parks within walking distance of my house, and I remembered her as a mom I chatted with on several occasions while our kids played last summer. We talked some more and then exchanged phone numbers for future play dates.

To read more of this post on the Vox Pop Network, go here.

I posted this last week, but it’s been a little crazy here at the Zughaus. This was an essay I drafted a couple months ago, and was actually part of a larger essay originaly. But as I went on and on I realized there were two threads of thought that should probably be split in order to keep it simple and short(ish).

I think I fined tuned this one in three drafts, plus a little tinkering after Bryan read through it. I also made a point of closing with a question in hopes of generating a conversation in the comments. This seemed to work, as this post contained more comments than either of the other two I posted previously. I got this idea from Jen Lemen, who I’ve noticed ends many of her posts with a thoughtful question to draw people out of lurking.

Writing Day

My latest post is up at Mars Hill’s Vox Pop Network about stepping out of my comfort zone. Titled, Overcoming the fear that toilet paper may be hanging out of my skirt, here is an excerpt….

I once watched with curiosity as my friend stopped to talk to a homeless woman in my neighborhood and extended ways in which she could personally help her. I had no idea what made her capable of doing this, and chalked it up to just not being my thing. I know lots of extroverts, those people who make conversation with everybody. They chat with the cashier while grocery shopping, they talk to the other moms at the park, they say, â€˜Hey, that looks cute on you,â€™ to the fellow shopper at the mall. I once knew a gal whose husband teased her that sheâ€™d talk to a light pole if no one else was around.

This is not naturally me. In fact, this is the opposite of me. It is the anti-me. And for the longest time it was the so-not-going-to-EVER-be-me me. But lately Iâ€™ve been trying to not use this as an excuse to avoid the people Jesus puts in front of me.

Go here to read the full essay.

I worked on this essay for weeks, and finally posted the fourth or fifth draft. It’s such a rewarding experience to see something kind of good work its way into something (dare I say) excellent. It has also been beneficial in getting over my aversion to drafting. Just when I think something is great, I let it sit for awhile, and don’t even read it. Then I come back to it a week later with fresh eyes, and a new phrase pops into my head that fits perfectly between paragraphs three and four to tie it all together.

It can be a maddening experience though, and I’m beginning to see why writers and artists are so eccentric. We spend so much time in our own thoughts, distracted over an undone work of art, that the Right Here and Now gets a little lost. Please warn me if I start looking a little disheveled and mumble to myself while quietly rocking with pen and pad in hand.

My mother’s wish granted: More Jesus, less swearing.

Things are finally falling into place concerning my other writing gig (I just love saying that – writing ‘gig’), and I will hereby unveil it in this post.

In juuust a minute.

But first, a little context. By now you’ve probably figured out that despite the drinking and the swearing and the boob shots, I am a Christian. It’s a tricky topic to talk about directly for many MANY reasons, so I have chosen to refrain from any overt declarations and simply lend a few clues into my faith through my writing. If I do talk about my faith here at This Pile, it’s because there is no other way around processing through the topic at hand.

That being said, I have wanted an outlet for thoughts and essays that speak more directly about my life as a Christian. Recently I discovered my church has a network of blogs called The Vox Pop Network. I thought this was a very cool thing for a church to have, and a couple months ago I inquired about being a contributor to one of these blogs.

Aaaand despite the swearing and the drinking and the boob shots, they gave me a password and said, Go For It! So if you are interested in reading me in a different context – one that is more about Jesus and less about me, one that is several times refined and not a first draft, one that is filled with more hope and less angst – you can follow me (along with other contributors) here.

My first essay contribution, on the topic of baptism, is here.

Writing Day

The rhythm of discipline is producing the fruit of patience and tenacity. I earned every word I put together today, every paragraph and thought. I spent three hours on one essay, and was not discouraged or frustrated – I was pressing in to make it beautiful. I was creating, letting the inspiration flow through me, rather than trying to squeeze it out of a wet sock.

And in my mind I have turned the corner from thinking my three hours a week is a respite from the Everyday, sipping my wine as I tinker on my laptop. These days I feel the weight and seriousness of commitment, the satisfaction and reward of hard work, the challenge of stepping beyond the shitty first draft until I get it right.

I am maturing in my identity as a writer, and I am gaining momentum in the process.

Time for the obligatory essay on the process of writing.

For the last few weeks I’ve been spending a lot of time writing in the evenings. Aside from a couple blog posts I’ve made, I’m mostly working on drafts of other essays to clean them up for third parties. I thought this would be tedious and frustrating, but I’ve actually found it to be quite exhilarating to see what can happen to a little idea once I give it two, three, or even four tinkers.

So far I have passive aggressively bullied Bryan in to reading all these essays (“Here’s another one to read when you get a minute, of course), despite the fact that he probably doesn’t have time. But he’s just so good at making me sound fantastic! He has this amazing ability to draw out of me the right images. “Take me into the room of that conversation,” he says. “I want to hear more about that moment.” “It sounds too formal here,” he said another time. “Show me, don’t tell me.”

I keep telling him that when I’m famous and have a book deal with cash advances, he’s the only editor I want. Which brings me to the fact that I keep day dreaming about getting published. Recently Bryan was acknowledged in Scott Berkun‘s book, The Myths of Innovation, because he read and reviewed a few chapter drafts.

This, of course, got me thinking about who I would acknowledge in the notes of my first book. I have a mental list of friends, blogger friends who can say they knew me when, my favorite waitress at the wine bar where I write…. Probably not unlike the actor who practices his Oscar acceptance speech in front of the mirror – only he’s actually made the movie.

I haven’t acted this silly since I was practicing my signature with every boyfriend’s last name.

blogging = fear + failure

I read another great essay by Scott Berkun on Creative Thinking Hacks. He makes the great point that most ideas are a combination of other ideas:

Every amazing creative thing youâ€™ve ever seen, or idea youâ€™ve ever heard can be broken down into smaller ideas that existed before. An automobile? An engine + wheels. A telephone? Electricity and sound. Reeseâ€™s peanut butter cups? Peanut butter and chocolate. All great creative ideas, inventions, and theories are comprised of other ideas.

I often try too hard to write. I get an idea brewing in my head about something, and I keep it at arms length – dancing around it, describing it coldly, and I get stuck at a dead end. And then I scream and pull my hair out and snap at Bryan, and he says to me, “Why are you coming at it that way? Just write about your experience with it.” And I do. And it comes out brilliant.

Sometimes I think I have to be new, and shiny, and smart, and the first to ever say it. But that’s not always what makes good writing. Annie Lamott once said in an interview on our local NPR station that she writes about universal experiences – i.e. nothing new – but she writes from her own perspective, which gives us, the reader, a fresh perspective on the universe.

In his essay Scott also addresses our fear of creating:

Half the challenge of being creative is turning fears off, and trying out ideas even if we think they might not work or are unsure of what will happen. Weird ideas almost always teach us something we could not have learned any other way, and improve the chances the next combo will be more useful.

One way to think of creative people is that theyâ€™re the ones who have more control over their fears, or simply have less fear of embarrassment. Being creative has more to do with being fearless than intelligent, brilliant or any other adjective superficially associated with creativity. This explains why many people feel more creative when drinking, on other drugs, or late at night: these are all moments when our inhibitions are lower, or at least altered, and we allow ourselves to see more combinations of things than we do at other times.

Besides the fact that I’m always up for justifying drunk blogging, I love the fact that he obliterates the alter we put creative people on. I do this all the time when I read authors and other bloggers. I melt over a brilliant phrase, or an image, or the way a story is told, and I think to myself that she deserves success more than I do. We certainly can’t discount the benefits of education or natural talent or hard work, but what brilliant book is going to be published if the writer is too afraid to put words onto a page?

I’ve said before that blogging has been my trust fall. I closed my eyes, folded my arms, and leaned back into it, and trusted that the internet would catch me. And it did. I definitely have more confidence in my writing now than I did two years ago, largely because blogging has removed the fear.

If you are a creative type looking for ways to get over your creative hurdles, I recommend reading the entire essay. It’s witty and wise.

New Projects

I’m sitting in the wine bar editing some essays for a new writing gig I can’t talk about yet. It’s exciting, but maddeningly filled with red tape, so I am practicing a significant amount of patience. Humility, patience, and submission are not everybody’s favorite topics to discuss or experience, yet I seem to be living in the midst of all three. I would rather break the rules and defy the Institution.

I’m also blessed and excited to have found a lovely writing partner. We are friends already, but decided to set aside some time regularly to talk specifically about our writing projects and the difficulty of maintaining a writer’s life amidst parenting, marriage, homeschooling, and the like. I have found her to be a great encouragement, and filled with very helpful and specific feedback.

In the past few weeks as I’ve read some amazing essays by amazing writers, I again felt a twinge of jealousy that I’m not that good. I stewed over this for awhile, and then was able to let it go at the realization that I have great potential to be that good given enough time to form a coherent thought.

Much of what I write is good, but it could be great. I often cringe when I hit the Publish button, knowing there is a much better word or phrase in me, if I could just remember where I last left my brain. Blogging has extracted The Draft from me – something I could never wrap my head around. I’ve spent many hours sitting staring at a computer (or typewriter, back in the day), waiting for just the right thing to hit me, that one thing that was worthy of taking up space on the page. I was terrible at writing papers in college, and almost flunked a class because I couldn’t bring myself to put words to paper.

Blogging has given me license to write the shitty first draft, in all its bare imperfection, and I was reminded that this is just the right place for me to be right now with two small children at home. So once again I have folded up my impatience and tucked it back into my pocket.

[I am now forcing myself to hit the Publish button, despite the crazy punctuation and incoherent thoughts: “sitting staring”??? Really, there is a much better way of saying this, I’m sure.]

Writer’s Workshop: Compelling Non Fiction

I was invited by my friend Julie to attend a writer’s workshop tonight on Bainbridge Island (put on by Field’s End), where I enjoyed a taste of small town quaintness. We packed into a little room in the library – where suspendered old men shuffled noisily about the room as they refilled their coffee cups – to hear Jim Whiting speak on writing compelling non-fiction. Jim mostly covered the topic of Lead-Ins â€“ those ways we grab the readers’ attention and keep them reading. He also covered elements of editing, such as transitions, rhythm, layout, and sentence structure.

What I came away with in the discussion that followed the hour long lecture, is that historical, factual, or biographical accounts need not be dry and boring. Even though we are not writing something that is invented, we are still telling a story, and we have an obligation to be good storytellers.

I think about this often in my writing, especially as it pertains to moving out of the blogosphere and into the print market. Blogs tend to have cult followings. I know my faithful readers (well, the COMMENTERS, anyway), and I know why they keep coming back. But when I think about venturing into the wild blue yonder of book publishing, I shrink in self-consciousness, wondering why on earth anyone would care what I had to say.

But then I attend a workshop like this one, and I am reminded that there are bad ways to tell a story, there are good ways to tell a story, and there are great ways to tell a story. If I am a great writer, and tell a great story, others will be drawn into my narrative. The things I struggle with and write about are universal â€“ anger, depression, parenting, friendships, marriage, etc. If my storytelling is compelling, and relevant, and filled with perspective, it will not be boring.

The idea of perspective is what I had always missed in my writing when I was younger. I was a Just The Facts girl – struggling to put events into chronological order and worrying about time lines. You all are lucky I am not writing an autobiography that begins, I was born in 1971 to parents who blah blah blah.

Or perhaps you would not continue coming back to This Pile if that’s how I wrote.

I think sometimes the facts aren’t always the important thing when telling a story. I’m not suggesting we lie about what actually happened, as in the case of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, (which came up in tonight’s discussion). Only that in telling a story of historical or factual significance, we are adding our own perspective, our own observations, our own interpretation of experiences. A good writer can write about making cookies with her mother and eloquently describe the fact of baking cookies, but a great writer can use the element of baking cookies with her mother to draw the reader in to a complex mother/child relationship.

(I made that cookie making thing up all by myself – was that great writing?)

As an example, one of the ladies in the room spoke about her sister having a completely different perspective on their childhood that she did, and she wondered what the truth would be if they each wrote her own account of growing up. And to me the answer is… EXACTLY, because each would write from her own perspective and her own experience.

It was a very enjoyable evening – bookended by relaxing ferry rides, and made complete by a pinkish sunset and the smell of the salty Sound. It was also a great boost to a lull in my writing motivation, so THANKS JULIE! I look forward to more lectures in the series.

The Sounds of Silence

Recently I missed four weeks of my dedicated writing time due to travel and the busyness of transitioning into summer, and I’ve had a difficult time getting back into it. There is something to be said for practicing the discipline of something, as being out of practice has caused my writing muscles to grow stiff and weak.

Even my private writing – those things I have no intention of posting – has suffered.

I think I’m not so interested in laying all my shit out there for everyone to read anymore, and I wonder if I’m going through a season in which I hold my cards closer to my chest. I have always made myself vulnerable and open on this blog, sharing all the ugliness as I muddle through it. But now, I feel like putting all that into words gives it too much power, and I don’t want it lording over me anymore.

I want to be hopeful and positive, but I wonder how to do this while remaining honest about the everyday struggle.

Stuff has happened in the last few weeks. I have fallen down, and gotten up. My marriage has been broken, and then mended again. I have been lost in the darkness, then found light again. I have hurt friends, and reconciled.

I just don’t know how to write about it anymore. Other things seem to be more important right now, like moving forward. The last two years I spent a lot of time looking backward, looking inward, and turning everything I knew about myself upside down. I’m a little burned out on psychoanalyzing, and have found much comfort in hearing the Truth and putting it into Action.

I will still show up at the wine bar every week to write, and I will still open up my laptop. Because, as Bryan points out to me on a regular basis, the difference between writers and non-writers is that writers write as a discipline, even when they don’t feel like it.

Gloating

I’m sitting in my favorite wine bar for my weekly afternoon of writing, sipping on a chilled Rose and feeling extremely grateful that it is air conditioned on this, the hottest day of the summer. The timing couldn’t have been better, in my opinion.

And lest you think I’m a bitch for leaving my children with the babysitter in a sweltering house while I bask in the luxury of coolness, we have a cool basement with walls of cinder block and a box full of movies – so they are doing just fine.

As for you? I am so. so. sorry. 🙂

Priorities

I’ve been simply DYING for my writing afternoon all weekend, only to find complete writer’s block once I get here. I had several thoughts brewing, and now, of course, I can’t seem to grasp a coherent thought.

Must be the wine.

I guess I can start with this: I feel like I need to put blogging on the back burner for awhile. Okay, so, clean the screen of the coffee you just spewed out and let me clarify. I may annoy you with pictures and silly things throughout the week, but my thoughtful and time-consuming essays may be more infrequent.

As I think about the health of my mind and the stability of my family, I realize there are certain priorities I need to separate out. Stealing moments to write in the evening or during naps is not working out as I had hoped. It leaves me feeling tense, distracted, and undone. When I do this, I wake up tired and irritable, wondering who put these blasted children in my care.

I have realized lately that I was allowing two important things battle it out for number one priority.

Instead of trying to fit writing in to my parenting and household management responsibilities, I somehow shifted into trying to fit parenting and household duties into my writing time. My children and the laundry suffered, and I was prone to rage. Rather than letting these two priorities battle it out, I am going to choose: I choose my children, and I choose my home.

These are precious years when my children are young, and some day I will find myself in the corner of a closet, crying that I did not appreciate it more – unless I make a change. It bothers me that I so often find my children irritating to me, because they are amazing. I know I can enjoy them, because I did here, and here, and here, and so many other times that haven’t been documented.

I just completed two years of Recovery curriculum for co-dependent and rage tendencies, and I would be remiss if I did not make changes to my life that reflected my new-found habits. When I feel distracted, I rage. When I feel busy, I rage. When I feel interrupted, I rage. Therefore, I need to ‘close the lid’ on my laptop throughout the day and focus on what I’ve always felt called to do, which is be a stay-at-home mom to my children, a support to my husband and his career, and a household manager.

This may not be your thing, and I get it. But it’s my thing. And once again, I need to live like I believe it.

As for my writing, I will guard my Tuesday afternoons at the wine bar with the ferociousness of the fiercest wild cat. This is my time to create, and Bryan fully supports this time. He is amazing, and patient…and amazing.

Did I mention he was amazing?

Anyhow, another season may find me in a different place. When both my kids are in school full time it is highly possible I could bump my writing to a higher priority. But for now, I want to enjoy my children and take advantage of these years.

I need to trust God that he will not allow my mind to turn to mush. I need to trust him that my inspiration to write is not just a fickle thing, but will always be part of me. I need to trust him that Inspiration does not have a deadline.

I also have things to do in my garden.

‘Nuff said?