Writing When You Can't Write

Her chest was tight and her breathing difficult. Breathe. Relax. Go back to sleep.... She coaxed herself to be calm. It was no good. Anne hugged her stomach. She felt like throwing up. The clock said 3 a.m.. She needed rest, but the exhaustion that first allowed her to sleep was gone. She wouldn't rest anymore... not until fear wore her out enough for fatigue to again release her.

What is Anne afraid of, cancer, a new job, foreclosure, a stalker? I don't know about Anne, but sending my son off to college this week terrifies me! So I get up and read a book until I can't resist sleep any longer, and the next morning I capture all my feelings in a journal entry for later use.

Times of change bring stress. Life careens out of control--much like entering a curve too fast. All you can do is deal with the moment and hold on. Such times often devastate our writing intentions, but they can be a foundation for better writing in the future. The key is to focus on the type of writing that can best be done in the situation, rather than to give up writing all together.

For me, the busyness and stress of sending a son off to college drove out the time and the motivation to do my mystery rewrite or romance rough draft. I don't have time to remember where I am in a story, let alone focus on it. Will I lose days, or weeks of writing, until the crisis is past? When life interrupts my writing goals, journaling keeps me from being unproductive. By journaling in times of crisis, I capture the tension of those times. I step into my writing mindset and examine my feelings. What better time to grapple with describing what it is like to be uncertain, terrified, or harried than when we are feeling that way ourselves?

Life's interruptions can be a writer's road block, or they can be our on-the-job training. Learning to communicate the intensity of difficult moments will bring our writing to life. So step back, observe, write, and maybe, just maybe, you will manage to preserve your sanity in the process. Sane or insane, you will have made the most of the moment as a writer.

April Poetry Challenge

I am enjoying the Poetry Challenge again this year. It's great to develop the discipline of working on a new idea each day, even if I sometimes have to post them later. I am also enjoying the companionship of several other writers in the challenge.

You can find the prompts at Poetic Asides, and you can enjoy the poems that are posted by clicking on the comments link under each prompt.

You can read poems from our group or post your own on our new Pens & Pages Poems .

Here is one I wrote about writing, and what has been written:


Silence Overflowing

Papers bound together with a wire
waiting for ink to give them meaning.
Pens are river channels of the mind
leaving marks in layer after layer,
like fossils caught in leaves of slate.

Walls overflow with ideas
sandwiched inside cloth and boards--
fibers smeared with ink.
Little bits of other's lives
touch my mind across the gaps of miles and time.

I speak with silent marks on empty pages,
and listen to pages full of marks that make no sound.



There is one more week to National Poetry Month. Plenty of time to jump in and write a poem if you haven't already.

TGIF ;-)

I was supposed to post this on Friday, but it's Tuesday. I have a good Writer's Reason for being late. On Friday I was finishing up my editing to get two submissions into the Frontiers in Writing contest sponsored by the Panhandle Professional Writers!

Other than contests that were entered on my behalf by College directors, this is the first writers contest I've ever entered and, on my personal journey of writing, another step I can mark off that little "To Do" we all carry around in the back of our head.

In talking it over with some fellow PnP'ers I solidified in my own mind the Good Things (tm/ Martha Stewart) that I can get from taking this important step. And none of them include winning ;-)

First of all, I performed the steps to enter the contest -- including following all the rules, checking and double checking the items to include, etc. and that is good for me, because I have a little trouble -- like most moms of a certain age -- with covering all the bases, and keeping all the balls in the air that I juggle.

Second, I am looking forward to receiving -- no offense, fellow PnP'ers -- completely objective critique from people who have no stake in sparing my feelings, or stroking my ego. Just straight feedback as un-subjective as it can be on stuff I've written. I look to this to give me some useful stylistic and even grammatical pointers.

And Finally, I did it. The fact that I did it at all is a 'uuuge step in my pathway, as I'm usually one of the "also rans" who woulda, coulda, shoulda entered...but, alas (a big sigh always accompanies this admission) I didn't. The reasons vary, but usually follow a loosely prescribed subset of parameters. "I didn't have time", "I wasn't ready", "I'm too chicken", etc, etc, etc.

The lessons I learned in simply entering the contest have me looking forward -- even more -- to the benefits to come from the critiques when the contest is over.

Like: a synopsis isn't a four-letter word. It may be tough to summarize a full-length novel in a two-page, double-spaced, 12-point, Times New Roman font...but once you have, full-blown clarity opens out to you like a clearing in the woods. A synopsis becomes like a road map that gives you a bird's eye view. It lets you look at the novel in a different light, not from the inside where everything you're looking at is distorted because you're too close to it. A synopsis lets you spot, almost impartially, those places where the scenery surrounding your novel's path is a little...how shall I say this... uhm, thin. I am now a fervent believer in writing synopses... like my trusty road map when I embark on a road trip, I'll never "leave home without it" again. As a matter of fact, I think I will start every book with a synopsis.

The most important thing that happened, though, is that I have "ripped that band-aid" off. See, as I said before, this is the first contest I entered myself... even though I wanted to I've always let some excuse prevent me. Like an old dirty band-aid, long past it's usefulness, my fear needed to be pulled away, and fast, in order for me to progress in my writing life. So, I've done that now. I've gotten over the hurdle, and any contest I enter from here on won't be that dreaded first.

So...no matter the outcome, I've already "won".