Elizabeth Who?

I may have killed my blog.

To be more precise, my life may have killed my blog. Perhaps it was that I have been doing other things (like writing) in the time I would have spent blogging.

(Yes, a lot of the time this is how I write.)


Or maybe it was summer that did it.

Whatever the cause, my blog has lain fallow, untouched by me since my birthday which was over a month ago.

I promise to be more diligent. After all, where else can I indulge myself in the way I do here?

The Week of The Heavy Hits

The first signs of a cold I mentioned in my previous post turned into a fully blown assault on my general well-being; I spent a day in bed, feverish, aching, too sick to do much besides watch television. My voice went from raspy to non-existent—a challenge in the classroom.

More difficult was getting some feedback on my work that seemed designed to stop me dead in my tracks. Which it has done, though I'm rallying now.

I never thought that being a writer would be easy. When I quit my perfectly good job as a legal secretary to devote myself to writing, I expected that there would be plenty of moments of panic and doubt and...well, I was right. But I was also right in believing that if I didn't do this thing I would regret it for the rest of my life.

I've been blessed in many ways. The trick, it seems to me, is to remember those blessings, and acknowledge how lucky I've been. So, a gratitude list. Here goes:

• My husband's belief in me buoys me when my own doubts seem to be winning, as does the support of my friends. 
• My daughter continues to tolerate me. And we laugh together. A lot. 
• The Inner Bitch has been very, very good to me.
• The Universe keeps sending messages that I was right to make this choice.
• Today the sun is shining and the changing leaves provide moments of breath-taking beauty. 
• Against all odds, I still have a roof over my head and a room of my own in which to write.

What are you grateful for today? 

At This Point

I'm back to working on the memoir and realizing once again that I truly have no idea how to pull this off.

How am I going to avoid telling this story without appearing to whine about all that happened, without making myself out to be a victim of circumstance? Because while things happened—awful things, painful things, confusing things—and I was, of course, affected by those things, I was not (am not) a victim. The fact is I made my choices about how to respond to what life presented and I want that to get on the page.

The section I'm writing now is pivotal in that sense so I am slowing down, coaxing memory to reveal myself—the self I was at that point—to me so I can see how the person I was, the child I was really reacted to the events of the time.

How do I do justice to the story? How do I make art out of the stuff of life?


The only thing to do, I suppose, is to keep writing.

Speed of Write

So, I'm sure that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy are lovely people, and I'm sure they have much to say. After all, they are the people who adopted Michael Oher and thus inspired "The Blind Side." News that they are writing a book to be published by Henry Holt this summer makes me think, "What?"

This isn't because I doubt the commercial value of such a book—I understand that it's the best-selling blockbusters that help make more literary books possible. It's the time involved.

I'm already been working on my memoir for a year; writing, shaping, thinking, revising, deleting, inserting, reconsidering, etc., etc. It's a little disheartening to realize that a book which will take about two months to write (maybe) has already secured a publisher, will probably get a huge advertising push, and is almost guaranteed to hit the best-seller list.

Oddly, all of this makes me understand, again, the reasons I write.

World Famous Writer (or Poet)

At least once a day I receive an email with the subject line, “Do you have a story to tell?”

“Yes,” I think. “Yes I do have a story to tell.” Then I delete the email, along with those offering free motorized wheelchairs, amorous liaisons, and vacations in Cincinnati and Niagara Falls.

This morning I decided to open the “story” email, just to see if there was something I should do about having a story to tell. Other than what I do every day, I mean.

Am I ever glad I did! Because here’s what I found: an offer to learn how to be a world famous writer or poet. But wait, there’s more! With a simple click, I would learn how to be an author and get published—which I always thought was the first step in becoming a world famous writer or poet, though based on the design of the email it is apparently secondary. .

I’ve been wondering how to go about doing this. So I clicked. Turns out one becomes a world famous writer or poet by self-publishing. One learns how to be an author and get published by paying for book packaging services.

What a wondrous thing to consider. Instead of writing and revising in hopes of creating a piece of work that might inspire an agent to take me as a client, instead of that same piece of work being deemed worthy of publication by a publisher, instead of the resulting book finding an audience through the usual channels, it turns out that the path to success as a writer (or poet) is actually straight and relatively flat. If I just play my cards right, I could be as lucky as Fede Alvarez, who parlayed his $300 YouTube video into a $30 million Hollywood movie deal.

The truth is, however, that either way I have to finish the memoir. So I guess I’ll go back to work now.

Exercising

It’s taken me way too long to understand that, in order to have the stamina to write, I need to spend some part of my day moving. Which is why I’m grateful to my family for the gift of Wii, a device that makes “exercising” feel like play (another thing I’m beginning to understand is essential).

The details would be too boring to write about, much less read about, though I may decide to do just that the next time I need to stretch the writing a little. For now, however, it’s challenging enough to actually sit down to the assignments I’ve given myself. My body conspires against it, as does my mind. There are so many reasons to not write: laundry, a crossword to complete, some TV show, the swarf of everyday life. There are so many reasons to not write this specific thing: fear of exposure, fear of not getting it right, fear of not discovering the essential truth that will raise my memoir over the swamp of solipsism. Plus, who cares?

So many reasons not to write, and only one reason to write—I simply must.

Yet there are days when settling into the words is challenging and I must exercise that most flabby of muscles, my resolve.

My friend Jamie Cat Callan—whose books include the charming French Women Don’t Sleep Alone—developed a wonderful thing called The Writer’s Toolbox. It’s full of first line prompts, non sequesters and these cool little spinning wheels, all designed to help writers exercise the “write” side of their brains.

It makes me wish I were focusing on fiction right now. As I’m putting most of my energy into writing my memoir, I don’t have a lot of time left over for fiction but I’m warning you: it may happen and it may happen here. This is, after all, a thing I’m doing to help me get the words out—an exercise, much like the games I played with the Wii this morning.