Taking the No out of NaNOwrimo

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.”


-- Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

All of us intrepid writers out there are fighting temptations throughout this month so we can get something down on paper. 50,000 words of something--but really, more than "stuff." Any creative act is a big yes and full of light. Messy and unformed as our thoughts look on the first pages, there's such a beauty there, and yet we run from it to embrace lots of negative, empty, life-denying actions and thoughts. Why?

I don't care if I make the 50,000 mark of my sequel to HOW WENDY REDBIRD DANCING SURVIVED THE DARK AGES OF NOUGHT--for now titled INEXTRICABLY--but I do want to emerge on December 1 with some sense of forward momentum and trust that this manuscript is worth finishing.

A tall order, perhaps, especially when the temptations are everywhere. Not just the laundry and everyday tasks that don't have enough time to be done, but the dark and wayward thinking that derails the mind.

I don't mean writer's block; that's its own mountain to discuss. For me, it's lazy thinking. I don't have crises of faith, but I do follow lines of thought that are worthless.

• Like making to-do lists beyond the bounds of the day job, when I should be off duty, "driving the truck all night," as my mom used to say, reviewing that which yields no fruit or pay 
• Like spending precious minutes ranting and resenting the unsolvable--like the annoying habits of highly invasive and unconscious people
• Like wondering what the Kardashians or the Braxtons are up to
• Like stewing over how so and so didn't do me right the other day when they did such and such
• Like chewing on how if I could only change this unchangeable thing about x, then everything would be better, or...
• Like guilting myself out for not being perfect in writing, discipline, or whatever I feel like beating myself up for

Needless to say, these minutes make many hours, and these habits sap creative energy. They are big nos that stop the flow.

Like my commute, for example: some days, I spend 40 minutes or more on any of the above worthless mind meanders when I could be plotting my story. Author Lisa Jordan asks, Why not steal those moments to write? I've generated so many good ideas when I start demanding I do, and suddenly, the tiresome commute becomes incubator, lab, office. I ask myself the simple question from childhood when I wanted a story to go on: "What's going to happen next to Wendy?" That stokes the creative fires.

Off goes NPR and tales of political corruption and Wall Street greed; off goes the local station giving the celebrity dish and traffic despair. Instead I put on a favorite song, set to repeat, and after 20-some plays, I have new scenes, new threads, new dialogue for the novel.

Writing is about mind control. It's about the muse, yes, and the creative impulse, but at the end of the day, it's no different than being in any other discipline. What gets a person up at 5 AM to run and train for the half-marathon? The same belief in oneself and commitment past fear, laziness, and greed to get the seat of the pants to the chair, staying focused past the desire to check Facebook and email, and reminding oneself that this time is worthy, necessary time. Somedays that's the most important mind control: telling myself I should make time to find the seat in the first place. Prior to sitting some writers fight many battles, mental demons of whether they even deserve to be present on the page. I battle whether to stay there.

The other day I went straight from work to a coffee shop and began Nanowrimo-ing. I ran into a fellow teacher I worked with in the past, who was hard at work with colleagues at his own table: grading, grading, grading. He and his colleagues, after a long, hard day in the trenches, went back to work with each other's companionship and coffee to keep them going. I remember those years. Grading in that very coffee shop is what I used to do, day after day. I said yes to those kids' papers and my job every day.

Writing is my job now. It's no less important, meaningful, or spiritual than any other day job. Don't listen to culture that calls it hobby, lark, detour. Do what you were made to do. Say yes, Lyn, and seek that light!

Writing Prompts:

1. How's Nanowrimo going for you? Or any writing project? Do you have a daily discipline, or is the project surviving on stolen moments now? Is it time to recalibrate and ask yourself where time hides and must resurface for your writing?
2. What dark thoughts plague your thinking and trap you in the "no"? Where do these thoughts come from? What need do they serve?
3. What light thoughts can drive you back to the page? Write a few lines that can serve as mantras or pep talks--succinct and quick messages to self--to get you back to the page.
4. What did your favorite authors do to find time to write? 

He Gets Me

Now the road I want to travel’s a little driveway made of gravel
On a shady Piedmont hill in Caroline
Where the trees sway in the breeze whispering sweet melodies
It’s the closest thing to heaven in my mind

from "Coming Home," by Greg Hawks

When I met Gregory Lewis Hawks in February of 2005, I'd just stopped a traditional line of work--teaching--and taken a risk to do freelance curriculum work and write my novel. Not an eyebrow was raised from my suitor on the topic of pursuing my art, as my husband-to-be, a country and bluegrass musician, had one album to his credit and another in the hopper. When you marry an artist, here are some things you never have to explain:

• I need to be alone with my art. (In his line of work, it's said Alamance County-style, as in, "I wish everyone'd just leave me alone so I can pick."
• It isn't right! There isn't enough time in the world to get this right! (In our house, a Saturday morning is happily spent facing the demons of a wayward song or manuscript.)
• I'm crazy to be an artist. Why am I an artist? (When certain bills come, we shake our heads and then remind ourselves we'd not be able to sleep at night if we took a job just for the big money. Not that anyone's offering that, but you have to console yourself somehow as you're paying bills in an economy where wages are stagnant and artists never made much anyway.)
• Nobody cares what I do! (When you spend years making a piece of art, you start to lose it somedays, thinking that no one will ever hear it, read it, care about it, nor understand why you took so long to birth it.)

Of course, someone does care what I do--a lot. That's my husband who believes in me, who's patient with my artistic frustrations and moods, who gives me my own verb ("are you deadlining?"), and lets me face the process, day after day, in my office alone, with writers' groups, with an expensive coffee and sweet habit. 

Besides understanding my need for space, Greg thinks like I do, in ideals, possibilities, arguments, wishes, and dreams. He makes art because he wants life to be better, sweeter, more blessed. Life is a rhyme and a pun and a lyric; it's an image, a snapshot, a line of verse. Our conversations about people and politics and ourselves all spring from this artistic view--a spiritual view that claims man was made to create. I never have to explain the passion so consuming. I never with him have to shelve the dream.

It's rare in this life to find soul mates--friends, family, or lovers who let you be exactly who you are. When we find them, we need to celebrate them, every day. What I have I didn't always have and won't find everywhere. 

Thank you, my sweet husband, for building this artistic haven with me and giving me all your love every day. Happy anniversary.

Writing Prompts:

• Who gets you and your dreams? How do they give you license, space, and support?
• Write that person a love letter, a thank you card, a poem, or a lyric of thanks.
• Whose dreams do you support? How
• If support is lacking in your life, visualize the people you need and want in your life. 
• What is the biggest need you have right now in order to pursue the artist's dream? What are 10 ways you can fulfill that need?
• In your writing, are your characters pursuing their dreams, or are they stymied? Why? How?
• If your characters lack dreams, give your protagonist and a secondary character each a goal that is an impossible dream, something they gave up when they were 16, 25, or older. Why did they give up such dreams? What were the obstacles? Is there any way they might try to get back to these hopes?