Whose Clothes Are Those?

There were two days last week when the temperature dipped into the 60's, so I decided it was time to rearrange things in my closet. I brought out some sweaters, counted how many pairs of boots I own, etc. Then I turned to look at the long line of black, navy and taupe clothing that constitutes my collection of lawyer clothes. A lot of them were dusty, because they've just been hanging there for almost a year now.

I took a closer look. Did I really wear those clothes every day? They looked so uncomfortable, so unforgiving. And a lot of them looked worn out. I started pulling them out and making a discard pile. Fifteen minutes later the pile was enormous.

I've kept my favorites. After all, I expect to be working as a lawyer again within a few months. But if I need to handle a one week federal court trial next month I would need to go shopping first.

So what did I put in the big gap in my closet? I hung up all of my cycling clothes. So now every time I open the closet I think about whether today is a good day to go out on the bike path. That's probably good, no?

Being Surprised (Pleasantly)

I have been listening to an interview with Lorrie Moore on "Writers on Writing," which is Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's weekly writing radio program on KUCI. She was talking about how she goes about writing her stories and novels and she said, "The author has to be a little bit surprised." It felt like she was talking to me -- throw out all those outlines!

I didn't throw my outline and Excel spreadsheet of chapters out, but I packed them back on the shelf.

Over the weekend I pulled out another half-written novel and brought it with me when I went to eat hazelnut pancakes. (I used to go to this particular restaurant for brunch on weekends with my son who is now in college. Just because he's not here doesn't mean I need to give up my weekly treat, right?) I was so happy with what I found. It's not half bad. I like the main character (yea!) and I felt myself filling up with hope and energy again.

I'm in the process of going through what I have done already, which is about 150 pages, and figuring out what else needs to be done. I have an idea of where there are gaps in the narrative but I'm trying to just remember it all rather than right it down. That doesn't seem to be a good artistic endeavor for me.

I'm happy again!

Haunted By Irishmen

I'm being haunted by four Irishmen -- I thought they were all dead but I just went on Wikipedia and found out that one of them (the one I've never met) is still alive. My ghosts are not the typical ghosts of Irish writers -- no James Joyce or William Butler Yeats for me. No, I am haunted by my father, John, my uncle Jess, my high school English teacher Frank McCourt, and Liam Clancy.

As I've reported, I'm having a tough week. Can't get going on a writing project, pretty sure I hate the protagonist of the novel I've plotted and thought I was excited about, wondering why I'm trying to do any of this.

For the last few days whenever I've sat down to do something that is amusing but clearly a time waster (watching French soap operas on TV, reorganizing the closet in the garage where cleaning products are stored, looking for new people to friend on Facebook), I get this weird feeling in my shoulders and I can almost see the four of them sitting on the sofa behind me, all in jaunty tweed jackets, their heads tilted a bit to the side, just watching me. Finally one of them will say to me: "So, what are you waiting for? You think you have something to say, so say it."

I don't know that much about Liam Clancy, but the other three were certainly not the sort to sit around waiting for perfect circumstances to get on with the thing they thought they wanted to do. My father spent his best hours playing and teaching music while working an office job to feed and clothe his family, my uncle Jess was an amateur historian who filled his house with volumes on English legal history which he read after he retired from the New York fire department. And we all know the story of Frank McCourt, who apparently was struggling to find a way to express himself during the very years he was showing me and my fellow students the beauty and joy of simply reading our language out loud.

One of my favorite memoirs is Pete Hamill's "A Drinking Life." Hamill grew up in Brooklyn and is quite a bit older than me, but his description of growing up in an Irish neighborhood where the accepted path to nirvana was a government job with a pension and a dependable tavern at the end of the street rang very true to me. But there is a passage at the beginning of Chapter 6 that I listen to over and over again. Hamill describes his decision to turn down an apprencticeship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard when he was in high school, wanting to pursue his dream of becoming a cartoonist and bohemian. Hamill wonders if what he is hearing from his priest and others around him is true -- is it arrogant and a sin of pride to conceive of a life beyond the neighborhood? He expresses this point of view in a simple way: "Who did I think I was? Who the f--k did I think I was?"

I think it's a phrase that runs through the mind of not only thousands of children of Irish immigrants, but probably just as many aspiring writers, musicians, painters, etc. as well. I see now that I am among the fortunate. While my mother did subscribe to and espouse that view of the world, many other important influences in my early life didn't. So, as I sit here wondering who the f--k I think I am, there are four other people filling my brain with the message that I need to just get on with it.

Maybe a Caffe Mocha?

This is one of those days when I don't want to do anything. I made myself go to my French class, got myself to go to the gym afterwards (in the rain) on the promise that I could get a lovely cup of coffee later. I went home and have spent an hour paying bills, catching up on email, etc. Now I need to go to the post office to mail yet more queries. And then I should stop by the library. Then, finally, I will get my caffe mocha. But the BIG question -- if I sit there and sip it, will the words come?

Farmer's Market

On Thursday nights I am taking a class at UCLA -- not a writing class, believe it or not. I have decided to turn Thursdays into my dreaming days -- as long as this class lasts. This week I went to the Farmer's Market and set myself up for the afternoon at the Coffee Corner (apparently in business since 1946). It was a warm afternoon, but I got a table in the shade. I had a wonderful time goofing around with my writing notebook and people watching. I found myself very curious about what had brought some of these groups of people to the Farmer's Market. I didn't actually get any writing done. I outlined some, took some notes, and contemplated whether I like the protagonist of my novel enough to spend the next several months inside her head. I'm still not sure. But I did get excited about the lists of other stories I have bobbing around in my head.

Cocoa Berry, Armani #6 and Annie

In the last few days I realized I have one additional writing ritual that I haven't been very aware of.

If I'm home, especially if I'm by myself, before I sit down to a writing session I put on fresh lipstick and sometimes eye liner. I know that this can be explained away by saying that I think of writing as equivalent to a job, etc. etc. etc. But that's not it. I don't put on the neutral, same-color-as-my-lips shades that I would wear to go to court or a bar dinner or the well-sharpened espresso eye pencil that just makes my eyelashes look a bit more sure of themselves. No -- I put on strong, dark red lipsticks -- the colors you would find in film noir classics, the ones that leave weird, unappealing stains on coffee cups, the ones that make me look a little too old, that make the lines around my mouth a little too prominent. Why do I own so many of these colors? I can't blame over-active salespeople because I really do like the lipsticks, I am just too chicken to wear them most of the time. And I wear dark, thick eyeliner -- sometimes even the liquid gel kind that requires a VERY steady hand, trying to look like an Italian movie star circa 1962.

I think I'm putting on my "writer gal" persona when I do this. I remember the passage in Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" when she described putting on a perky skirt suit to go visit her editor in New York early in her career, when she was astounded to find that they wouldn't spend the day sitting by elbow to elbow figuring out how to make her book perfect. I'm not prepared to put on special clothes these days -- I spent enough years in law firms writing briefs while wearing a full-on suit and high heels. I know I can write in those circumstances but I also know that the restrictive clothing does not necessarily improve my output.

Now I'm comfortable with just a little exterior touch-up to be ready to do my work. I do this if I'm in black pants and a cashmere sweater (as dressed up as I get these days) or in yoga clothes (put on in the morning to assure that I will actually go to class in the afternoon); if I'm sitting down for ten minutes or for the whole day. Just another quirky thing to (hopefully) help the process move forward a few more inches.

Sending Ships Out of The Harbor

Several years ago I started a business book club. I invited other lawyers, stock brokers, PR professionals, even a librarian. We met at my office and discussed a book we had all agreed on. It was fun and was a good way to get to know people I met at networking events. Unfortunately, it died of its own weight after only about six months. People were too busy to read the book, to attend, etc.

But I remember some of the books we read and the discussions we had. One of the books was "The Wealthy Spirit: Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction" by Chellie Campbell. I only remember one thing about the book - the author's theory that you need to think about things you do to further yourself as little ships that you send out of the harbor. We don't know which ones will come home laden with goods, which ones will sink, which ones will never be heard from again, and we don't know when any of this will happen. I guess the only thing we know is that nothing good will happen if we keep all of the ships tied up at the dock.

I think about this all the time with my writing -- not just when I send out a query letter or submit a short story to a magazine, but every time I say "yes" when someone asks if I want to sit in on a writing group or if I meet a writer who is interested in exchanging pages. It's scary and each individual thing is unlikely to lead to a big "aha" moment, but you can never tell. Someday something wonderful will come chugging around the breakwater.

In the time I've been serious about my writing -- about five years now -- I've kept plugging away at it, going to seminars, workshops, trying writing groups, reading writing books, talking, talking, talking about process and mostly just trying to get myself to sit down in the chair and do it. I guess I don't have much to show for it if you look at it in a business-like sense. But when I look at my shelf full of binders of things I've written, look at my file folders of research and ideas, and look at my calendar and see weeks filled with things to do and people to meet that are directly related to my writing, I do get a feeling of accomplishment.

And I don't even know how many ships are out there out of radio contact. I just know there are a lot of them and I will keep sending more.

Me and My Note Cards; My Note Cards and Me

I'm plotting my novel. Sat down with a stack of note cards and wrote down a scene/chapter on each one -- the ones I've written already, the ones I plan to write, the little wisps of scenes I've done just a little dialogue for. There is was -- my "darlings" spread out on the carpet around me. You will notice that they are not arranged in a line. They are clumped together, overlaid on top of each other, and there are some orphans along the left that don't know where they belong.

After I while I realized I needed a better way to approach this (I rejected just shuffling the cards and seeing what happens). I got out some pens and put a red stripe across the top of any card that represented a plot point or piece of action. Then I marked with pink the cards that were character development or deeper discussion. Then I used yellow for back story and flashbacks. Once I did that I saw that it was the pink and yellow cards that were orphans -- I was having trouble figuring out where certain things need to be told in the narrative. I also found that seeing the mix of red, pink and yellow on the floor in front of me told me when my story was going to bog down in too much back story. I didn't think I was that visual but it really helped me see the gaps I need to think about. Now I want to see if I can find a little clothesline or something and string my note cards over my head at my desk like Tibetan prayer flags. But I don't think that cards that say things like "Tricia has a fight with Matt" are so very inspirational to the other members of my family. In the meantime they are bound together with a clip and I am carrying them everywhere I go. I shuffle the order sometimes and think about whether that will work.