Suzy Spencer's blog

My blog generates frequent comments, though they’ve never shown up here.  Most often they’re posted on Facebook.  Sometimes, they arrive in my private email box.  A few days ago, I received what I felt was a powerful response to my Working Through the Struggle post.  That’s the one where I quoted award-winning novelist Joe O’Connell.  The response was so powerful that I asked its author if I could post the comment here.  I was told yes.  So, here it is.

“A few years ago I started an alternative teaching certification program so I could be an English teacher.  My big thing in the classroom was going to be making those kids write something every day.  Writing is that important and students are not being taught the skills necessary to succeed in freshman-level composition classes. And why is this? 

1.  “Name the two school subjects that consistently receive government funding and attention from the media?  Science and mathematics.

2.  “Name two careers that are consistently portrayed in the media as being glamorous?  Scientists and engineers.

3.  “Name two careers that pay the highest salaries to graduating college seniors?  Scientists and engineers.

“Now compare that to the way writers and other creative-types are portrayed.  It’s a little depressing, especially when it is we creative-types that the scientists and engineers approach to create their business ad campaigns or write their press releases.  Are we trying to be subversive?  Counter to the culture?  Our little way of raging against the Man?  Well, maybe we’ve been doing it a little too well. Maybe we need to light the fires under our own ‘hey, ho, look at us creative types go!’ kind of marketing campaign.  A ‘where would the world be without journalists or writers?’ type of campaign?

“Do we minimize our contribution to society because for so long we have been made to feel less-than-intelligent due to our lackluster math skills or inability to understand the human genome?

“Now don’t get me wrong, I love science and the fact that there are people that spend their entire life in the pursuit of science excellence.  I know several scientists and engineers that write extremely well and sell value in a well-turned phrase.  They also contribute significantly to the advancement of humanity and all that jazz.  However, the last time I checked, so did Shakespeare, Alcott, Cather, Shaw, Twain, and thousands of other writers.

“Why then do I have college grad students approach me seeking guidance on what makes a good writer or what makes a good article?  One grad student in particular comes to mind.  He attends a very prestigious*, highly regarded East Coast university, is a native speaker and is a product of American public school system, yet he struggles to write a simple article.  Writing clearly makes him, a math god, uncomfortable.  And you know what?  When the people in power are uncomfortable with doing something, then that something (writing, journalism, etc.) struggles. 

“One last story before I go.  When I was in college, my roommate was an engineering major.  She used to give me hell for wasting my time with an English degree, said that technical writing was a joke.  After graduating, she went to work for one of the major oil and gas exploration companies*, making near six-figures when they started.  Ten years went by before we spoke again. 

“Imagine her astonishment when she learned that I, a lowly technical writer with my joke of a degree, was working offshore doing the type of work that she dreamed of doing while in college.  She now sits in an office all day, every day.  Me?  I do the same, but every once in a while I get to go offshore and see and do some pretty amazing stuff. Stuff that is pretty darn close to ’cutting edge’ as one can get without getting cut.  So, yeah, it goes to show that a liberal arts education makes you a lot more open-minded to trying new things than the one-track mind of an engineer.

“I’ll get off my soapbox now.  You have a great way of hitting all the right buttons.”

By the way, the author of the preceding comment loved Joe’s suggestion of creating a vision board “to get the daydreams flowing.”  For more information on that, click here.

I’d also like to note that I love comments.  Feel free to leave them here, post them on Facebook, or send them to me privately.  But especially feel free to leave them here.

*  I was told the name of the “very prestigious” university and the name of the “major” oil and gas company.  Indeed, it is a “very prestigious” university, and it is a “major” oil and gas company.

This is a post I promised months ago.  Since I never got around to finishing it, and I figured you had forgotten about it, I was going to forget it too.  But when an apparently disgruntled American purposely crashed his small plane into a seven-story office building in Austin, Texas, Fort Hood came to my mind.  And that made me decide to finish this blog post.  It’s about my tiny bit of work covering the Fort Hood massacre for ABC’s Nightline.

“Military police have suspect cornered in bldg at Ft. Hood.  Police say 2 shooters opened fire, killing 7 people, wounding 12.  details still coming.”

My friend and investigative reporter Nanci Wilson posted that on Facebook at 2:23 PM on Thursday, November 5, 2009.  Within seven minutes, at 2:30 PM, I hit send on an email to Teri Whitcraft, the national law and justice unit producer at ABC News: “Let me know if y’all need help.”  Four minutes later, Teri wanted to know how long it’d take me to get to Fort Hood. 

I grabbed a bag of Zapp’s potato chips and started cramming them into my mouth.  It’d take an hour and a half to get to Fort Hood.  And if I were called in to work, only God knew when I’d have a chance to eat again.  I’d need the energy of food to do my job.

At 2:46 PM, Teri emailed me that she thought they had everything covered.

I put away the potato chips, turned on my laptop and sat down to type up my notes on a meeting with one of my sex book sources, but what I was really doing was watching the Fort Hood updates on CNN … and Facebook.  At 3:52, Nanci posted a call for blood donors at Scott & White hospital in Temple, Texas.  At 4:01, she reported that the death count was up to 12.

I couldn’t think about sex research under these circumstances. 

* * *

That’s what I wrote on November 13, 2009.  It’s factual. 

Below is what I’m writing more than three months later.  It’s based on hand-scribbled notes, limited emails and cell phone records, and my now shockingly vague memory.  I never thought that night would become vague.  But it did.  I guess that’s what stress does.  Still, I do have snippets of memory.  Their lighting is as detailed as if I were watching them on a theatre screen.

* * *

I wanted to be at Fort Hood covering the story.  That’s how I know I am a journalist, not simply a writer.  When the big story breaks, I want to be there.  It makes me feel like I am doing something about “it.”  Maybe I can’t stop the tragedy, but at least I can inform the people and maybe we can learn something and make changes that prevent such from happening again.

Since I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing, I changed clothes and walked out the door for the gym. 

Ten minutes later, I turned the ringer on my cell phone to its highest decibels, placed the phone on top of my purse, told the owner of the gym to let me know if he heard my phone ring, and climbed on an elliptical trainer to warm up for my workout.  At 5 PM, Karl, the gym owner, started me on my actual workout.  For the next hour, I lifted weights inside, I ran laps outside, I checked my phone, I lifted weights inside, I ran laps outside, I checked my phone. 

With all the phone checking, I felt like I was a prima donna saying, “Hey, everybody, look at me,” when I really knew the truth – I wasn’t going to be getting a call.  But that didn’t stop me from continuing my routine, lift weights inside, run laps outside, check the phone.  By 6 PM, my clothes, my hair, and I were soaked with sweat, and I was spent.  Of course, that’s when it happened – my phone rang.  In seemingly three leaps, I crossed the length of the gym and grabbed the phone.

Jeanmarie Condon, senior producer for ABC’s Nightline, calmly asked if she was interrupting me.  “I’m at the gym.”  She apologized.  “No, I just finished my workout.”  She wanted to know if I could work and how fast I could get to Killeen or Temple, Texas, homes of the medical centers that were treating the gunshot victims.  Without thinking, without asking permission, I stepped into Karl’s office and took it over, searching for pen and paper.  Karl handed them to me as Jeanmarie gave me my instructions – get to one of the hospitals, find friends, family, victims, someone with solid knowledge of the event to go on Nightline that night and talk about the shooting.

I grabbed my scribbled three words of notes, my purse, and literally ran out the door.  Ten minutes later, I began booting up my computer, while shedding clothes for the shower.  I washed my hair, barely blew it dry, found some semi-clean jeans and a shirt, threw them on, as well as a speck of makeup, went back to the computer, printed out directions to both hospitals, grabbed notepads and pens, put on shoes that I could run in and stand in for hours, threw a jacket in the car, and 40 minutes after getting the call, I was backing out of the driveway on the road to Fort Hood.

As I drove, I thought about the class I was to teach on Saturday – the Art of Interviewing.  I thought about what I’d tell my students about this night, about these sorts of circumstances – high pressure, big stories, national tragedies, what to do, how to prepare oneself, chaos, competition.  Oh, gosh, the list was endless.  And I hadn’t conducted interviews in months.  I reminded myself of my job – find people to interview, not interview them.  Breathe deep.  Relax.  Remember you’re a professional.  You know what you’re doing.

As I write this, in my head, I see myself water skiing.  I think about skiing whenever I get stressed.  It calms me, though I’ve only gotten to ski twice over the past 30 years.  Despite that, I know that when I set my right foot into that boot of a slalom ski, slide my left foot into the rear binding, and hold that single-handle rope in my gloved hands that I am going to get up first try.  Why?  Because I’ve done it that many times.  I know the fundamentals. 

I can feel my arms stiff and straight, my back strong, my stomach tight, my knees bent, the rhythm in my body as the ski bumps over the water, how my knees absorb the shock, how my arms lift and move like a guy wire, how my body leans, my ankle muscles stretch, how I chew the cinnamon-flavored gum in my mouth in perfect rhythm to the water, and how I scream with ecstasy because no one in the boat can hear me over the roar of the engine.

And in my mind, now, that’s what I saw when I drove over the bridge of Lake Travis.  I knew I could do this job.

This is part one of My Road to Fort Hood.  Until I post part two, if you’d like additional information about my coverage of the tragedy, please click here to read Fort Hood Notebook, a piece I wrote for the Texas Observer.

My blog generates frequent comments, though they’ve never shown up here.  Most often they’re posted on Facebook.  Sometimes, they arrive in one of my private email boxes.  This one came in one of my private boxes, and I asked its author if I could post it here.  She said yes. 

By the way, feel free to leave comments here.  I’d love to have more reader interaction right here on the blog. 

And, now, here’s A Note from an Angel, my friend Angela:

Hi Suzy,

Right off the bat let me say I am not going to knock your blogs on Wasted.  I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring your site, reading your monthly musings and your confessions.  I especially liked the most recent one.  I appreciate your struggle to stay motivated, to stay sharp and energized.  I admire your high standards, your zest for investing your soul into your art and refusing to give up or compromise your goals.

I have a theory.  As men age they tend to allow life to diminish them and they sorrow over the changes that life and advancing time brings.  I will concede that some women will do the same thing but most of my age peers look at what we have accomplished, what we have built in terms of career, families, loves and we congratulate  ourselves on what we have done.  Then we turn our eyes and hearts toward the future and welcome the next adventure.

I shared my theory because I think you are, in a manner of speaking, reaching the “cronehood” of your writing career.  Now is the time to bring together all the skills you have honed, the tricks you know to keep yourself moving forward and take risks, accept challenges and know you can achieve them.  You know this because you know who you are as a writer in terms of having a solid foundation and marketable skills.  Now you are ready to plunge into the deep end and go for broke.  You could not do this earlier in your life or career.  You needed ripening.  You needed to learn to trust your instincts and learn your craft.  Be strong as only a woman can be strong.  Pooh on the men who try to discourage you because they can’t conquer you or claim you.  They view the sunset of life as a lessening.  I challenge you to view it as the strongest time of your life and career.

I hope I haven’t come off as having imbibed a beaker full of feminine power, lol.  I have only recently felt this resurgence in my personal power and I finally realized I was trying to reconcile myself to being less, which was making me miserable.  Then it dawned on me that I am not less.  I am poised to be the most actualized I have ever been and I would not have been ready for this uprising of personal power without some age and living under my belt.  My dreams are what make life worth living, my striving to challenge myself makes my blood sing and it is good to be a mature woman with goals.

So you keep kicking butt and doing the best damn writing of your life.  You are not feeling sorry for yourself.  You were taking stock and keeping yourself honest.  Writing requires honesty or it is worthless.  Your writing is good, it will be better so long as you never settle for giving up your dreams, your goals, your zest.

Angela

Once again I’m standing on the sidelines of the flag football game.  No, standing is incorrect.   If a little guy is going deep for a pass, I’m going deep with him.  That’s why I have tendency to skip my Sunday trips to the gym.  Between shivering in 30-degree weather and running up and down the sidelines for an hour, I figure I’ve gotten in enough of a workout for the day.  But this Sunday, the temperature was in the upper 50s and warming into the 60s.  I didn’t even have on a coat.  Maybe that’s why I wasn’t running as many plays as I normally do – I wasn’t trying to keep warm. 

So, this time, I actually was standing on the sidelines.  And by happenchance, my body was perfectly perpendicular to the little guy in front of me as he reached … then stretched … for a long pass.  The ball tipped into his fingers, and then he dropped it.

“Ooooooooh,” we all groaned. 

And with all of my hearing, that hearing that goes from the ears to the heart to the toes, and ricochets off toes, back up to the brain, and returns to the heart again, I heard that disappointed moan of the crowd.

I walked back down the sidelines to where my cousin was standing.

“Thank God, writers don’t have people watching them when they write.  It’d be devastating to hear ‘oooooh, noooo,’ whenever we write a bad sentence,” I said.  “These kids have guts.”

I wondered if that kid who dropped that perfect pass heard and felt that collective groan like I did.  I hope he didn’t.  I remember last Sunday, my little guy dropped a deep pass right in front of my cousin and me.  We both moaned, “Oooooooooh.”  My little guy looked at us, pain painting his face like he was soooooooo sorry that he’d let us down and hurt us.  My cousin immediately started clapping for him and said, “That’s okay.  Good try.  You’ll get it next time.”

I’ve been thinking about those kids, their dropped passes, and their parents’ response for at least an hour now.  And I’m thinking maybe I’d like to have a small crowd around me, watching me when I write, cheering me and groaning at me. 

“Yea, Suzy, great sentence!  Attaway to go!!”  Applause, applause. 

My fingers strut over the keyboard with more confidence.

My little crowd leans over my shoulder again to read my next words.  “Ooooooh, Suzy, bad sentence.”

I drop my head, dejected.  My fingers flop motionless. 

Applause, applause.  “But good try.  You’ll do better next time.  Attaway to go!!  Keep at it.”

I perk up.  I look at that bad sentence.  I think of a better way to do it.  And I figure out a way not to repeat that mistake. 

Maybe, just maybe, a little crowd wouldn’t be so bad.

Once a month, a group of Austin’s most successful writers, as well as movers and shakers in the publishing business, get together for drinks and conversation.  I rarely go to these events because, well, I live in the boondocks and it’s a long trek into town.  Besides, I’m not a big socializer.  After a day of work, I’d rather hide under the bedcovers.  But last Friday night, the group was supposed to meet at the Blanton Museum for its once a month B scene event.  I immediately RSVPed yes because one of my favorite singers was headlining the event — Suzanna Choffel.

You may have noticed that I said “was supposed to meet.”  That’s because hundreds of people attended the Blanton event, and among those hundreds it was nearly impossible to find the gathering of writers.  So, by myself, I perused the Blanton’s current art exhibit called Desire, which is fascinating.  Well, let me restate that, it’s fascinating to a sex writer.  I was watching a curious short film when Gianna LaMorte, a sales rep for Random House, and Colleen Devine Ellis, a publicist for the University of Texas Press, grabbed me and jokingly accused me of watching porn. 

Laughing, I left the film to join them.  After all, friends in the industry had finally found me.  They glanced at the art while I scootched closer to what appeared to be several yards of white thumbtacks, all in a nice straight line, pressed into a white wall.  On inspection, there was a tiny black and white photograph on each tack head, as though one were looking through a peephole.  Gianna and Colleen too quickly moved on.  Well, too quickly in my opinion, not quickly enough in theirs.  They weren’t enamored with thumbtacks.  In fact, the only exhibit they liked was a sculpture of black roses, which I barely noticed.  But it was near that sculpture that award-winning novelist John Pipkin spotted us.  Like me, John was relieved that he’d finally found someone he knew. 

John Pipkin

John and I began to talk.  I thought Gianna and Colleen were talking with us, too, until I realized they’d dumped me.  That meant John got stuck talking to me for the next three hours.  I love talking to John.  He’s boyishly handsome.  He dresses well.  He wears great glasses.  He has wonderful (complimentary) stories to tell about his editor, the famous Nan Talese, and Nan’s equally famous husband, Gay Talese.  I love hearing these stories because Gay has taught in the University of Southern California’s Master of Professional Writing Program, from which I graduated, and Gay wrote the book Thy Neighbor’s Wife, which was a bit of inspiration for my literary agent’s suggestion for my next book – yes, the forever-talked-about, yet-to-be-published sex book.

But most of all, I love to talk to John because I can get him to blush so easily, especially when sex is mentioned.  Since we were standing in a sex-oriented art exhibit and since I’m writing a book about sex, needless to say, John blushed often.  He is so cute when that rose blush warms his creamy cheeks.  Yes, John, I know I’m embarrassing you.  And if your wife is reading this, she has nothing to worry about.  I’m too old.  You’re too good.  And I only tease those with whom I know I’m completely sexually safe.  But, boy, you’re a charmer.

After maybe an hour, we moved away from the sex exhibit, closer to where Suzanna was going to perform, John stopped blushing, and we seriously talked about writing and the writing process. When John talks about the writing process, I listen.  His first novel, Woodsburner, was named one of the best books of 2009 by the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Christian Science Monitor, and the San Antonio Express-News.  And – and let me emphasize this and – it won the 2009 First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction.  He received the prize at an awards banquet in New York where he was seated with Nan and Gay Talese.  (Yes, I’m jealous.)

Woodsburner revolves around a 300-acre fire that William David Thoreau accidentally set near Walden Woods and how that fire affects the lives of John’s four main characters – Thoreau; Caleb Dowdy, an opium-addicted, fire and brimstone preacher; Oddmund Hus, a man who lusts over his employer’s wife; and Eliott Calvert, an inept playwright, bookseller, and seller of porn.  (Yep, that’s a lot of sex by an author who blushes so easily at the mention of the topic, and I haven’t even listed all of the sexual references in his book.)

After spending three hours with John, I felt emboldened to ask him for one to three tips for working through the struggle of writing.  Here’s what John suggested:

1.  “The first tip is not terribly original or exciting, but it usually seems to work for me, and in fact I just followed this method earlier today.  When I’m at a loss for where to start writing, I’ll often begin by revising the previous day’s work.  This helps to bring me back into the story and remind me where the characters are.  Often revision produces new ideas to carry me into the next chapter or scene.

 2.  “I’m a big fan of maps and outlines, so whenever I get stuck, I usually return to my outline to see what I originally thought might come next.  Sometimes it’s easier to play with scenes and conflicts in outline form because it allows you to juggle ideas above the fray, rather than struggle with them in the trenches.  And, as horribly as un-sexy as it sounds, I tend to map out ideas in spreadsheets (yeah, I know).  Keeping ideas organized and compartmentalized in a spreadsheet buys me the freedom to wander around from idea to idea when I’m writing.  So when I get stuck, I’ll often just spend a day tinkering with the ideas in a spreadsheet to see where I am and where I’d like to go next.  I also like index cards*, and I currently have a big bulletin board in my home office covered with color-coded index cards.  Sometimes it helps to be able to physically move scenes and chapters around.  (Plus, there’s a certain satisfaction in stabbing frustrating chapters through the heart with a thumbtack.)  So, I usually have two or three different versions of the same story mapped out in different visual formats, and sometimes one format helps me to see the way out better than another.

 3.  “Let the characters do the work.  When I’m not sure where the story will go next, or how a particular conflict or struggle should be resolved, I try to turn to the characters involved to find out how they would react to the situation.  In this way the characters shoulder the burden of moving the plot forward.  This helps in two ways.  First, it ensures that the plot develops out of character’s motivations and actions/reactions.  Second, if I have no idea how a character would react in the scene that I am working on, this is a good sign that my character is under-developed and needs more refining.  Most of the time when I find that my plot is stuck, it isn’t because I don’t have enough ‘twists’ ready at hand, but because I haven’t thought through my characters carefully enough, and as a result, I have no idea what they should do next.  If the characters are full developed, they can help push the plot forward.  (Conversely, if the plot pushes under-developed characters forward, then the characters begin to seem like two-dimensional vehicles for external conflicts and ideas.)”

I want to point out that like Joe O’Connell, the award-winning novelist I quoted in Working Through the Struggle, John is a writer, husband, father, and teacher.  He teaches at both the University of Texas in Austin and Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.  I say that to emphasize that if one says one doesn’t have time to write, one doesn’t really want to write.  John crafted Woodsburner while he was executive director of the Writers’ League of Texas.  Being executive director of the WLT is a hellaciously stressful job requiring morning, noon and night commitment on weekdays and on weekends.  Because of that, John rose at four each morning to boot up his computer and write Woodsburner.  That’s commitment.  And that’s another reason I like John Pipkin.

 *  In December 2009, best-selling mystery and suspense novelist and friend Jeff Abbott blogged about Scrivener, which I gather is an Apple-only computer software program that, in essence, combines John’s spreadsheet concept with his index cards.  Jeff highly recommends Scrivener.  I can’t offer an opinion — I’m a PC.

I never intended for my blog to be solely about writing.  As such, I’ve tried to make sure each post has a universal message so that writers and non-writers alike can glean something from it.  But as I began this post, I knew it was for writers only … until today.  I added a few notes at the end that made me realize this post has something of import to non-writers too, specifically to those who are fed-up with the media.  Maybe the notes will help you understand why there is a decline in the quantity of quality journalism.  And, maybe there’s another little message that will be of benefit too.

I’m not a big fan of those “10 Tips to …” pieces.  To me, they’re simplistic articles that someone tosses out in a half hour in order to make $7 from a website that places no value on writing while desperately needing writers.*  Such sites equate word count with substance. 

On second thought, I think that may be exactly why I don’t like such articles — the so-called publishers are destroying the profession of writing.  When Helen Gurley Brown published a 10 tips to satisfying your man article in Cosmopolitan magazine, well, it may have been written by someone whose credentials we didn’t know, but we knew Ms. Brown was editing those pieces and she had credentials.  She wrote the groundbreaking book Sex and the Single Girl, based on her life as a sexually active single woman in the 1950s and ’60s and at the encouragement of her apparently sexually satisfied husband, the late David Brown.  And, Ms. Brown was paying her writers a decent wage for those ten tips.

Now days publishers say give me 750 (or 1000) words on such and such topic and I want 10 of those pieces in one day and I’ll pay you $7 a piece.**  Certainly that encourages the employment of writers with questionable credentials and expertise in the topic and practically forces them to make up all the information, rather than actually research, report, and verify the information.  It devalues the profession of writing, and it devalues writers, making it nearly impossible to be a full-time, professional writer.  Worse, it makes doubtful the validity of the information one reads.

All of that is a round about way for me to (1) rant about the state of publishing, journalism, and copywriting and (2) to say that I’m only writing this particular blog piece at the semi-request of one of my clients.  She’s the one I mentioned in Struggling.  Since she was struggling with her writing, I asked her if she wanted me to provide her with some tips to working through the struggle.  Hence, my use of semi-request — I offered, she said yes.

But as I started typing this and writing the part about writers just making up their tips and not doing their research, I had a brainstorm — why don’t I do some research on this topic.  I contacted four friends, all of whom have successful novels on the bookstore shelves right now.  I asked them to provide me with one to three tips on how they work through the writing struggle.  Four said they would.  Two actually came through.  (Interestingly, it was the men who came through for me, not the women.)

This spring, Joe is teaching a novella-in-a-semester class at St. Edward’s University.  It’s based on the NaNo writing concept — whipping out a novel in a month, while not worrying about editing and rewriting.  That way one silences the self-editing demon that can hamper productivity and creativity.  In fact, Joe’s writing with his class.

Joe’s Tips

1.  “One thing we are doing may sound a bit goofy,” Joe emailed me, “but I have them construct a vision board — photos that remind them of characters, places, etc.  We get out the Mod Podge and act like 13-year-old girls in creating something.  The idea is to get the daydreams flowing.  This is very useful at the start of a project and is also something to meditate on while writing.”

I’m going to interrupt here and interject that this works equally well in nonfiction.  For my true crime books, I paste on a poster board photographs of the “characters” from the book, pictures from their childhoods, their homes, their families, and their friends.  I also paste on photographs of the crime scenes and evidence.  I’ll stare at these poster boards for hours, noticing the tiniest details and looking into my characters eyes, begging them to tell me something, and usually they do. 

2.  “If (and when) I get caught in the middle,” Joe says, “I try to spend some time plotting out the rest of the book.  I write a 4- to 8-page loose synopsis of the story.  I usually don’t write this until I get stuck, but this semester I’m having students do it early so they can speed through that sloppy first draft.”

 Of course, Suzy’s got to throw in her two-cents too.  Since we’re in the midst of contest season — in fact, the Writers’ League of Texas manuscript contest deadline is February 24, 2010 — and often a one-page synopsis is required with a contest entry, I suggest to my clients that they graph five major plot points in their book and then write the synopsis based on those points. 

By plot points, I mean the inciting incident that kicks off the book, i.e. the event that throws the lead character’s life into chaos; at least two other events that spin the character’s life out of control, again, just when he/she thinks life is about to get on track; and the resolution, which will show how the problem created in the beginning of the book (or subsequent problems) is solved and how the character has changed over the course of the book.  Plop those incidents down on a graph, write a few sentences describing each, as well as giving a bit of character description, and you’ve got yourself a rockin’ one-page synopsis.

 3.  For Joe’s last tip, he says, “Artificial deadlines work.  That’s why I’m writing along with my class!  That’s also the ‘gift’ of the course for them.”

I partially agree with Joe.  For me, that artificial deadline has to be outside myself.  If I tell myself I have to write five pages a day, I won’t do that unless I know my book deadline is three months away and the only way I’m going to meet that deadline is if I write five pages a day. 

Knowing I’m that way, I knew I never would finish a book on my own.  And that’s exactly why I got my Master in Professional Writing degree.  To graduate, I had to complete a book.  So, in reality (and that’s an intended oxymoron to artificial), I completely agree with Joe’s tip that artificial deadlines work because my MPW forced me to finish a novel, just like his class is forcing Joe and his students to finish a novella. 

Similarly, my client has her “artificial deadline” of the Writers’ League contest.  And I’ve got to tell you, she’s making that deadline.  After reading Struggling, she sent me a bare-your-soul piece of writing that got her past the struggle and a few days later she sent me some new pages.  Those pages are filled with passion and they rock!  I’ve also got to tell you that she had to go through a time-consuming, gut-wrenching process in order to write such passionate, quality words.  What I’m back to saying is that you’re not going to get great writing at 50, 400-word articles written in one day. 

That almost sounds like I’m contradicting Joe and his novella-in-a-semester.  No, I’m not.  Absolutely not … because you have to get something on the page to begin the writing process.  The difference between publishers that pay $7 an article and Joe and my client is those publishers will publish anything – whether it’s factual or not, whether it’s good or not – and Joe and my client will go through a long, slow, tedious process of rewrite and more rewrite and often painful soul-searching until they know that their truth is written in their words and those words are crafted and polished as beautifully as possible.

And maybe that’s the universal message in this post – beauty comes in slow, tedious process and often, painful soul-searching.

My next blog post will offer three tips on coping with the struggle from award-winning novelist John Pipkin.

 *  In 2007, I read an article in the Los Angeles Times stating that the publisher of Pasadena Now, a Pasadena, California publication, was outsourcing reportage of the Pasadena City Council meetings to writers in India.  Yes, that’s India that’s on the continent of Asia, not India, Texas.

These writers in India watched a video feed of the Pasadena, California, meetings and wrote their news stories based on the video feed.  They missed any and all important happenings that took place off-camera and any opportunity to ask follow-up questions or questions of clarification.  Admittedly, they made mistakes in their reporting but dismissed such concerns because, also admittedly, they are not journalists.  The pay for their work was $7.50 for each 1000-word piece … or, as the publisher said to Maureen Dowd for the New York Times, “I pay per piece, just the way it is in the garment business.”

 **  I just read a CraigsList writing gig ad seeking someone to write 50 articles, at a minimum of 400 words per article, for a total pay of $100.  That’s $2 per article or .005-cents per word.  In 1966, the year after Helen Gurley Brown became editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, she paid freelance writers a minimum of 60-cents a word.  Cosmo articles generally run from 1000 to 1800 words.  So let’s look at this again – 2010, .005-cents a word v. 1966, 60-cents a word.  2010, $2/article v. 1966 $600/article.  Is there any doubt why the quality of journalism has declined?

Over the past few days, I’ve heard from a friend struggling with juggling work, motherhood, marriage, and graduate school and a client struggling with her writing.  I understand.  I struggle too. 

Right now I’m struggling to write this because I’m sitting in Whataburger.  Let me back up.  For years, I had a set writing routine.  I’d wake up, check my email, shower, check email again, get dressed, check email again, and walk out the door to Whataburger — hence, the Whataburger cup on the home page of my website. 

I’d order a number one meal (Whataburger, fries, and soda), fill up my cup with ice and Diet Coke, sit down at one of my three favorite tables (next to the door or windows), pull out a hard copy of my previous day’s writing, and start editing.  By doing that, by the time I left the WB, I knew exactly where I needed to began writing, what I wanted to write, and how I wanted to start it.  And, and this and is important, I thought about that opening all the way home so that all I had do to when I got home was flip on the computer and start writing. 

Other times, I’d take my laptop to Whataburger and start writing there, sometimes getting so lost in my work that I’d stay for hours.  I’d “wake up” to realize I’d written through an entire Whataburger shift change.  I loved that.  I loved that the Whataburger employees found my work and me intriguing enough that they’d let me sit for hours and leave me alone.

But as some of you know, I moved, which meant a switch in Whataburger’s.  While my new WB is filled with great employees, I’ve never felt comfortable working here.  Only one employee seems curious about my work, and that’s because he wants me to edit his school papers for him, which I would do if he’d ever remember to bring them to me.  Plus, this store is too small to let me take up a table for hours.  And the clientele is different.  Musicians and homeless men frequented my old Whataburger.  Retired corporate executives and blue-collar workers fill this Whataburger.  Some people would consider that an improvement.  I don’t.  They don’t feed my creative juices.

I remember sitting in my old Whataburger when Jennifer Gale walked in, her brown hair flowing over the shoulders of her apple red Christmas sweatshirt.  For those of you who don’t know Austin, Jennifer was a transgendered homeless woman who frequently ran for mayor.  She was a sweetheart.  I can say that from personal experience because as she walked out the door one day, she stopped, turned around, came over to me, and with a big, beautiful smile on her face told me how much she loved my eyeglasses and that she hoped I had a wonderful day.

Jennifer Gale

Such kindnesses don’t happen at my current Whataburger.

And, indeed, Jennifer made my day wonderful.

I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t feel the emotional support at my current Whataburger that I did at my old one.  And I’m sure I’m projecting myself on my friend and my client when I say that often we find ourselves struggling when we feel like we’re not getting the emotional support we need. 

I know that’s happened to me over the past few years as I’ve struggled with my sex book.  People who once supported it turned against it.  One person even told me that the book is going to destroy my career and … well, I don’t want to say what else she said.  But perhaps worst of all, the person I depended on to be my biggest, loudest-cheering champion gave me such harsh critique that I lost my self-confidence.  Initially, the harsh critique was done in the name of making me a better writer.  At first, that’s what it felt like – hard critique to make me better.  But over the years it seemed to turn into cruel, unnecessary digs intended to make me doubt myself.  And that’s what it did.  Like the cliché acid, it ate away at my self-confidence.  The scars run deep and red. 

I’ve thought about that a lot over the past hours … ever since I got the email from my client … saying her writing wasn’t going well … that her work (in essence, since I’ve been coaching her) is missing its former elegance, that it seems forced and clunky. 

She’s right.  And I know the reason why.  In the name of making her a better writer, I froze her with my harsh critique. 

“Stand up and shake,” I wrote her back.  “Literally.  Just stand up and shake me off.  Then go read my blog about writer’s terror.  Don’t think or worry about me.  Just write.  Just write for yourself … for your soul … like nobody’s listening.”

That’s what I said last night.  Today, all I’ve been thinking about is my mentor Ben Masselink.  Ben was my favorite instructor in the University of Southern California Master of Professional Writing Program.  All Ben ever told me was go, go, go, go, go, you can do this.  You’re almost there.  Go, go, go, go, go, go … though Ben usually said it with a ton of typos as he pecked out the words on one of his black Underwood typewriters. 

So, to my client, I want to say I’m very sorry that I’ve made you doubt your talent. Truly, I have been hard on you because I do believe in you and do believe that you are talented.  In fact, you might be the most innately talented writer I coach.  I’ve been harsh on you because I thought you were strong enough to handle the critique and because I wanted to prepare you for the harshness of this industry.  I still believe you are strong enough to handle the critique, but I failed to remember that we all need a Ben Masselink in our lives.  So, girl, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.  You’re almost there.  You can do it.  I believe in you.  Go, go, go, go, go, go.

And to my friend, I believe in you too.  I know it’s hard.  I wish I were there to help you juggle.  But I know you can do this.  Go, go, go, go, go.  Or, as Ben told me, “YOURE GOING TO DO IT!!!!”

No, you ARE doing it.

USC classmate, friend, and novelist, Mitchell Sam Rossi, me, and our beloved mentor, Ben Masselink

In my previous post, I mentioned that I have a tendency to start writing something, get halfway through it, take a break, and then never get back to finishing it.  Today, I went to my blog folder and discovered a piece titled “Writer’s Terror.”  I looked at it’s date — September 22, 2009.  As per my modus operandi, I’d gotten halfway through it and then lost my way.  

Just an hour or two before I made that discovery, Karl Duvall, the kind gentleman who owns the gym I go to, posted on Facebook that today he struggled to run his nine miles.  It was 33 degrees and for the first four miles he ran against a hard mental wall.  Then he started thinking about a question I’d asked him:  “How does one push oneself when training alone?” 

For the next two plus miles, he said, he thought about how to answer me.  And answer me, he did, comparing his runner’s wall to writer’s block.  Karl said to think about how I’d gotten through other struggles in my life because “somewhere deep inside we all have something that keeps us fighting through our struggles” — the huge ones like death and divorce, as well as what Karl called “the little huge ones like finishing a book, finishing a workout/run, losing weight and so many more things.”

“We have to step back,” he said, “reevaluate our goals, why we’re doing something and how to accomplish it.  Remember your Why? and it helps to reach it.  Also most importantly, remember those that can help you do it.  Think of the cheers and the pat on the back.  The size smaller jeans you want to fit in or the paycheck you’ll get.  When it’s gym related then ask for the kick in the butt* that we can/will give you.”

So,  four months after I started it, I try to finish my “Writer’s Terror” blog post.  I hope it — along with Karl’s words — encourages you.

Some people suffer writer’s block.  I suffer writer’s terror.  That’s when I’m so terrified of being judged or so terrified of repeating past mistakes, so terrified that I can’t live up to that talent that I know I have but fear I’ve lost, that I squander the day checking email and Facebook and researching other possible book and story ideas.  In other words, I never get around to writing.  Then I waste the night praying for God’s help and mercy in finding my talent again and praying for the discipline to sit down at the keyboard and actually type and write and expose my soul … because if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year is that I find my writing voice when I expose my soul. 

That’s probably the dilemma right there – I don’t want to expose my soul.  I want to write about other people, not me, seemingly forgetting that when I write about others that I’m really writing about myself.

For example, though I joke that my book Wasted is crap, and though I always add that like a Jackie Collins novel it’s riveting crap, I know there’s at least one paragraph I’m proud of.  It closes Chapter 13:

Folks just didn’t understand what it was like to feel you had another person’s blood flowing through your veins, making your heart beat, you skin tingle, your mind want to work, your arms want to reach out and touch and hug and love and breathe and feel loved and fulfilled for the very first time in your life, like you’re not alone in the world, like there’s a mother to care for you, a family who won’t abandon you, someone who accepts you even when you feel all ugly inside.  But Regina understood.  And it was worth life.

Regina was the murder victim in Wasted.  On the surface, we were nothing alike.  She was a young, wild, directionless lesbian.  Well, perhaps she did have a direction that she wasn’t even aware of – self-destruction.  Still, I could relate to Regina in at least one area of our lives and that area was a desperate need to be loved and accepted.  So when I wrote that paragraph, I tapped into my own (and, man, I don’t want to admit this) desperate need to be loved and accepted.  For those three sentences, I felt like I was channeling Regina and she was channeling me.

As many times as I’ve read those words aloud at book signings, I have never admitted that they’re really my thoughts and feelings, not Regina’s.  I didn’t want to expose myself.  After all, I want my writing to be about others, not about me.   But — and I know I’m repeating myself here – I know I find my writing voice when I expose my soul.  And when I find my writing voice, my writer’s terror … well, it is no more. 

*In 2008, through the Writers’ League of Texas, I taught a class called “The True Kick in the Pants:  Starting and Completing the First Three Chapters of Your Narrative Non-fiction Book.”  I’m tentatively scheduled to teach a similar class — for nonfiction and fiction — this coming May, again through the WLT.  This class won’t be limited to just the first three chapters.  Instead, it’s intended to help struggling authors prepare their manuscripts for the Writers’ League annual agents conference, a conference where writers can pitch their books to editors and literary agents and learn about the inside workings of the publishing industry.  I highly recommend this conference.