Who Will Take A Risk

I made some great headway this week -- revised 6 chapters! 

I think I overcame some confusion I had about the play.  (In my book, The Red Coat, a troupe of actors stage a play inspired by an ancient Greek myth about true love.)
   
When I first wrote those chapters, I had a lot of technical issues.  Mostly it came down to how to present the play.  Do I describe it in prose or do I put the scenes in dramatic form with dialogue and stage directions?  I tried writing them out in dramatic form, but the transitions to the rest of the novel, which is written in prose, seem abrupt.   

The other problem is I'm trying to capture the world of the theater, but I don't have much firsthand experience with it.  I went to film school and have worked in the movie business, both on and off the set, but I didn't study drama, don't have any experience writing plays or too much experience acting in them either.

So, I've been immersing myself in that world, reading plays and essays on playwriting and going to the theater whenever I have the chance.  I saw Annette Bening in Medea at UCLA and the production of Electra at the Getty Villa. Thanks to an invite from my fellow masterminder, Linda, I'm going to see Moliere's Tartuffe at the Actor's Gang (Tim Robbins' acting company in Culver City) on Friday night.  A couple weeks ago I immersed myself in Benjamin Britton's opera The Turn of The Screw in a day-long program at the Getty that the museum puts on annually in conjunction with the LA Opera.

I don't have it figured out yet, but one thing I'm going to try to do -- is take a risk.

My picture this week is a snapshot of some of the books I was reading this week.  What inspired me most was reading the plays of the ancient Greek comic poet, Aristophanes, and the introduction to the collection of plays by Moses Hadas, who wrote: "Aristophanes erases the world that is and constructs another."  That is what I want!  Another!

In one of the plays (see an excerpt below from The Frogs translated by R. H. Webb), Dionysus goes to Hades to bring Euripides back from the dead because Athens has no good tragic poets left.  Before he leaves, Dionysus tells Heracles (whom he's consulted on how to get around in the underworld) that he wants a poet who takes a risk:

Heracles: But surely myriads of little men
Still scribble for the Tragic Boards up there,
Ouprattling your Euripides a mile.

Dionysus: Mere nubbins, with a silly gift of gab;
Shrill swallow choirs, murderers of Art!
One single play produced, and they are spent -
Small piss-ants, fouling up the bed of Tragedy!
What potent poet can you find today,
To father one full-bodied, ringing phrase?

Heracles:  Potent? You mean...?

Dionysus:  A poet who will risk
A bold, a reckless utterance, such as
Aether, the Inglenook of Zeus; Time's tread;
The mind refused its solemn oath to plight,
The Tongue was perjured, in the mind's despite!

Heracles:  You like that stuff?

Dionysus:  I'm mad about it!

Heracles: Pshaw!

Aristophanes, who wrote those lines in 405BC, made me think, what would happen if I took a risk like that?

Whatever You Focus On

This week, I found myself struggling for a topic.  Was I really so smoothly engaged in my writing that there were no hitches?  Could that possibly be?

I started to wonder if by looking for places where I had resistance and fear I was actually creating resistance and fear.  You know, that idea that whatever you focus on you get more of.  Like in therapy: if you only dwell on your problems -- and don't give energy to what's actually working -- you won't move forward.   Then I started to wonder if the blog was a good idea at all.  After all, I confessed to Wylie as I was telling her about all this the other day, I can spend hours (I mean hours) working on a post.  And THAT really is keeping me from my work!

Wylie laughed.  She suggested I do my posts as timed writing exercises like we did in our Thursday night writers group: you give yourself a topic, press the timer and then go. Ten minutes.  Write non-stop whatever comes to mind, no thinking, no corrections, no going back.  It's a fun way of getting everyone in the group focused and ready to work.  But for some reason I couldn't commit to that idea.  What if the writing was crap? What if it didn't make any sense to others? Who would want to read it?  That kind of writing can be really hit and miss.

So Wylie suggested I riff on something I was working on in the book.  Immediately, that ode to Eros came to mind.  It was a prayer from antiquity that I found in a book by a Jungian analyst -- it was the closest thing I ever came to discovering my true religion.  But I couldn't commit to that either. I felt (and still do feel) that the book should not be discussed here.

After my conversation with Wylie, one of our other masterminders, Linda, who seems to channel ideas from the gods, gave me another great idea for a blog topic.  She sent me this link to http://paintingadogaday.blogspot.com, which connected me to this whole "painting a day" community on the blog-sphere, where painters use their daily blog to crank out one painting a day.  A great way to foster creativity and innovation!  What if I used my blog in a similar way, say, to work out ideas for a poster series I want to do relating to one of the characters in my book?


All these great ideas were running through my mind about how to change the blog to support my work.  And then yesterday, I realized:  I actually did have one fear this week that's been holding me back. 

I skipped every painting day this week.  In fact, I have not painted one illustration for my book in almost two months!  I painted the cover art and the first illustration, a portrait of my main character, and then I stopped.  What happened?  Looking back, I think I freaked out when the style of the portrait didn't seem to match the style of the cover art.  The cover (the flying coat) was very orderly while the portrait felt a little "outside the lines" (colors actually mixed!) Not only that, ha ha, but try as I may, I couldn't get the portrait to look like the main character as I've described in the book, with thick dark curls, etc.  Instead, she kept coming up looking like me!  Ha ha!

I'm such a control freak! When am I going to get out of my way????

She Never Wavers

At our mastermind meeting on Sunday, I said my goal for next month was to get back on track with writing. After submitting my pages for the first novel competition, I slacked off so that, three weeks later, I've only got one new chapter done!

If I am to finish The Red Coat by the end of the year, I have to rewrite on average 2.6 chapters per week!

How to do that? Here's what I came up with:

• Write Every Day - It's better if I write every day seven days a week, even if it's just for 15 minutes. There's more continuity that way. I can pick up more quickly where I left off. Plus, if it's a bad session and nothing gets done I won't freak out. One bad day out of seven is okay (it's actually important to be able to fail) - but if it's the only day I've written the entire week the anxiety skyrockets! I just need to get back into the habit of writing every single day.

• Make A Schedule - It also helps to map out a weekly writing schedule and stick to it. As we say in our mastermind group, it's knowing who you are -- and then building on your strengths and minimizing your weaknesses. I used to do my best writing late at night, when it was quiet and dark. Being a mom, however, forced me to become a morning person -- plus with a demanding office job I have less energy at the end of a long day. First thing in the morning turns out to be a great time for me because my internal critic is still half asleep. Now, I get up, stumble into the kitchen, get my cup of fragrant black tea, go into my writing room, close the shades, and start. On weekdays, if I've overslept, sometimes all I get is a few minutes -- on weekends the writing session can go for hours. Either way, the important thing for me is to do it first. It's like saving money. They say the best way to save is to pay yourself first.
  

• Stay Off the Internet - One of the "other things" I did first instead of writing was to check my email. Big mistake! A quick minute on the internet can easily burn into an hour. I'm usually quite good at sticking to this rule but there's been so much going on in the world I've been deeply distracted by the news. What good did that do anyone? Did my anxiety over world events alleviate anyone's suffering? No, the best thing under these circumstances is to stay centered, to continue working in faith that what I'm doing will make a difference one day. Write first, then check email.
  

For my picture this week Chuck Smith (see his gallery) came by and installed a nestcam on our porch that takes continuous video of one Culver City mom who works day and night with a commitment that inspires me.

The Fruit of Her Labor

My friend Cynthia Wylie, who leads our mastermind group and wrote the book First Friday Masterminds, loves to say:

"Do not be concerned with the fruit of your labor.
Just be concerned with your labor.
The fruit will come of its own accord."

I asked her about the saying the other day and she said she thinks it's from the Bible. I looked up "fruit of your labor" and found many variations on Psalm 128:2. I like Wylie's version because it gets you focused on the labor and not the fruit.

But, still, how does that really work?

I wanted that $10,000. I wanted to win the big prize. This past week I threw my hat over the wall and told myself that no matter what I was going to make that deadline. Announcing it to you made it irrevocable. You can't talk about it and then not do it, right?

The strangest thing happened. Two weekends in a row I never left my house. I stayed up till 2am on work nights and wrote on lunch breaks and buses to and from work. I didn't watch the Academy Awards. Didn't go out except to swim. Didn't sleep. By the time I got to Sunday night I was mentally and physically exhausted, but I still had to finish the outline. In 15 years, I had never been able to succinctly state the plot to my magical book. Yesterday's deadline forced me to figure out what the most important elements were in the story I wanted to tell.

The strangest thing is: I feel like I already won the big prize. I found it in myself. I came up with answers to questions that were always lingering in my mind. Now I have a definite, practical, written purpose and plan that I can use over the next 10 months to finish the book. A solid first 50 pages and a beautiful two-page outline.

As for my photograph this week, I snapped it last Thursday before the storm. She did come back, and not only did she finish her nest she laid two eggs in it! I watched her movements. She'd fly off for brief periods during the cold rainy afternoons, but at night she'd hunker down as the cold wind blew and the branch shook. I wondered if she would survive the elements, if her nest would hold. I would go to the window when the wind blew up hard to check on her, and she was always there, enduring, solitary, steadfast, a little humming stalwart.

You Can't Win If You Don't Enter

Next Tuesday is the deadline for the James Jones Literary Society First Novel Fellowship and I have to submit the first 50 pages and a one to two page outline of my book to be eligible for the $10K prize they give annually for a work-in-progress of fiction by a U.S. writer who has not yet published a novel.

One of my other goals for this year (besides finishing the book) is to raise $12,500 for the book launch early next year. That money would go to things like creating the website, printing limited edition copies of the book and covering the costs of a premiere party.

Winning would bring me closer to my dream... but of course you can't win if you don't enter.

So what's holding me back from entering?

First, I'm slow. I'm the tortoise. I always get there, but can I get there by Tuesday????? My two page outline is currently at 5-1/2 pages and I've only covered six out of twenty chapters. Yikes! Plus, I have to write a missing but very important chapter!

Second, I'm sick. I came down with shingles from stress at work. The company I work for just came out of Chapter 11 reorganization and it seems like every week there's another round of layoffs.

Third, I have other pressing obligations. I have an important assignment at work so I can't possibly call in sick tomorrow. Also, my son's financial aid forms for his college financial aid are also due March 1st -- which means I have to finish my taxes by then too. Good grief!

Do you think I can finish -- on time?

I didn't have time this week to snap a picture for you, so I decided to use this one. When I first started writing this post I didn't know how the picture would figure in. I took it a few days ago. Over the holiday weekend, I noticed a hummingbird darting back and forth between our porch and wherever it is hummingbirds come from. She seemed very interested in my potted Norfolk pine. When I got up close I realized why -- she was building a nest in it! How lucky is that??!!

Do you think she will come back and finish it?

Afraid to Start

The topic for the first week’s post was easy. It came to me in a flash. It came before I even started blogging. I named it: AFRAID TO START.

This is how it went in my head:

You need to learn how to blog if you are going to self publish and promote your book. The problem is you don’t have time to blog. You are not ready. You can’t possibly blog about the book before you are finished writing it and blogging about something else will take up too much time and distract you from the book. Okay so forget about writing a blog just take pictures. That’s easy. No, The Sartorialist can do it but you suck. Your camera sucks too and you’re out of control on wordpress. You can’t even figure out how to navigate the dashboard. You could try vimeo except you’re not even sure what that is. Better be careful. Don’t get carried away. Don’t get too complicated. You have no time, remember. You can’t possibly do this.

All this was going through my head, when I remembered Srinivas Rao’s interview of Lisa Hickey (goodmenproject.com) on BlogcastFM. They were talking about getting started on your blog and I think it was Srini said, “You won’t be very good at first – the key is to just do it. “

That’s when I decided I had to do it.

I had to just start.

SO I DID!

And how do you like my picture for AFRAID TO START?

I was on my way to the pool and I thought, I’ll ask the lifeguard to take a snapshot of me diving in off the block. Great image for the point I want to get across, right? Except when I got there I realized that they don’t have blocks at the Culver Y! Plus, by the time I finished my workout, lap swim was over and a gang of kids jumped in with their beach balls and flotation devices! My perfect idea ruined! But I had to get something, some kind of shot. So as I was leaving, I snapped this picture. Kids having fun.

Bringing it to Light

This month’s assignment for my mastermind group (firstfridaymasterminds.com) is to create a Facebook Page and (for extra credit) to start a blog to promote the service/product I am developing in the group.

My service is to help other women and the product is The Red Coat, an illustrated fairytale for women that I have been working on for 15 years. I know, right? That's a long time! Several months ago we set goals in the group and one of mine was to finish The Red Coat by December 31, 2011. That's this year!

In the past, things always got in the way of me finishing anything - demands of motherhood, tough jobs, difficult bosses, and confusion about the men in my life - but mostly it was me and my lack of faith in myself. But now I feel ready. I feel like I can do it! I learned a lot about myself writing the book and I can't wait to show it to you. But of course, there's always that fear: what if it's no good? What if it's not right? What if it's not exactly...perfect?

I decided a great blog topic for me (one that supports rather than distracts me from my goal) would be to write about the fear and resistance that comes up as I near the completion date.

Here are 5 things I want this blog to do:

1. Be simple. I want to be understood.
2. Be easy. I have enough on my hands trying to make my deadline.
3. Create awareness. I want to identify the fears that holds me back.
4. Create movement. I will come up with actions to address them.
5. Be interesting. I'll follow through and write about what happens!

In the coming week, I'll be taking note of moments I start to lose my way, making excuses, falling into confusion, becoming afraid. I'm not sure fear will go away, but bringing it to light, coming up with a plan and taking action will certainly do one thing for me -- I expect I'm going to have an interesting week!

If there is something in the way of your happiness, a dream that you keep putting off, I encourage you to try it this week too!