A Work In Progress

This past Wednesday, I had the fabulous opportunity to listen to a full-time writer and a full-time web cartoonist talk about their work and take questions from my class about the business of writing and anything else in the universe.

At the end of the discussion, someone brought up the idea of fear and its influence on art. They joked for a bit and talked about how fear can be a powerful motivating force. "Remember that food services job you had in high school?" they said.

I nodded. I remember Acme Fresh Market all too well.

"Well every time you don't want to write in the morning, remember how much that job sucked and how awful it would be to have to go back to that. The fear of that future should be enough to at least get you to start writing."

But then the discussion turned to a little more of a serious note. Howard the web-cartoonist said, "I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that this applies to everyone. The bad news it that you suck."

He was blunt and he was straight forward, and those words sank into my bones. Howard and Dan (the full-time writer) talked about everyone starts out bad. No matter what you do or what you're learning, you're going to be bad--terrible, even--in the beginning. There's really no helping it. That's just the nature of things.

"The key," they said, "is to not be afraid of not being good. Always remind yourself: I am a work in progress."

And those words sank deep into my heart. I am a work in progress and I am the only one stupid enough to expect that I should be perfect now.

Sometimes things are rough and raw. Sometimes I feel that I am falling apart, that I'm being swallowed up in a cloud of chaos. Sometimes I stand on the precipice of a new phase in my life and I'm just so damned (sorry Mom and Dad) scared of what's coming next that I throw myself to the ground and dig my fingers into the dirt until they're raw and bleeding.

But I am a work in progress. I don't have to be finished and polished right now. I don't have to be in control of everything all the time, and sometimes it's okay to be scared. Sometimes it's okay to cling to the ground for a little until you're ready to face the precipice of newness. You just have to take a deep breath and remind yourself: It will be okay. Everything will be okay.

Maybe things aren't going to be what you want them to be. Maybe they'll be better and you just won't know it till later.

Sometimes you wonder...

I was just reading an article on Yahoo!News about gay parenting, and I came upon this gem of a quote:

"Gays and lesbians rarely become parents by accident, compared with an almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals."

I really want to know how these same sex couples are "accidentally" becoming pregnant. Especially male couples. That one really boggles the mind.

Anyway, it really makes you wonder who edits these articles.

On Writing

The other day, I was in the children's publishing survey class I'm taking this semester and we were talking about different roles in the writing industry. Our professor asked people to raise their hands if they wanted to be an editor, then a writer, then an agent.

It blew my mind that not everyone had their hand in the air to say they wanted to be a writer. It didn't make any sense to me. At all. I'm still struggling to wrap my mind around the fact that there are people out there who don't want to write books. Which is silly. Obviously not everyone wants to write stories, but I guess some part of me felt that everyone in the world shared that passion with me.

As I've come to try to understand this little bit of information, I started thinking why writing is so important to me. I'm trying to understand the compulsion in my bones that draws me to my keyboard or to pen and paper. For me, at this point in my life, there is no greater release, no greater sense of satisfaction then crafting a good story.

It's like I have a set of friends who live in my mind, who whisper their stories to me and ask me to make them real. These characters are a part of me. They're the products of my creative mind and they are as real to me as my family, as my friends. Their pain is my pain. Their joy is my own. It's like I have access to a secret world that no one but me knows yet, like I have the adventure of learning their stories, their triumphs before anyone else. With them, I am never lonely, I am never bored. I'm grateful for the things in my life because I see what they lack. In writing, I learn about myself and the way I think and feel about things.

Writing is a greater rush than reading is. I could sit on a couch all day and read to my heart's content, but writing is powerful and emotional and hard.

And so very, very worth it.

Sometimes, when I'm working my way through a difficult scene or plot point, I want to pull my hair out. I want to give it all up, say nothing I'll write will ever amount to anything, so why even bother. I want to do something easy. But then there are times when writing comes to me as easily as breathing, when it's as steady as my heartbeat. There are times when characters spring from my fingertips, as alive and as fleshed out as anyone I could meet in real life. There are times when I can write thousands of words in the space of a few hours. There are times when creation swells in my bones and I know the beauty in all things. And in those moments, everything is right in the world. Everything fits together and my soul is at peace.

And I guess it makes me sad to think that there are people out there who don't get to know that thrill and joy that I do when I write. It makes me feel apart from the people around me when I realize I can do things they can't even fathom, and I can't help but think that the world would be a better place if people took the time to sit and think and write and create.

I don't know if I've done any of this justice. I probably haven't. Over the years, I've learned that I can't not write. No matter how hard it is, I keep coming back for more. I love the days when my only obligation is to sit and write.

There is beauty in the world all around us. Some people don't recognize it. Some people recognize it but can't communicate it. All I hope is that I never stop recognizing it and never stop trying to capture it with words.

A question for the new year

To write in first person or third.

Believe it or not, this is actually an immensely difficult dilemma for me, and I keep switching between the two of them, which makes for a very sloppy manuscript.

Alas.

But in the way of things for the new year, my goal is to have a finished and relatively polished novel in my hands by this time next year. Something polished enough that I'm ready to submit. 2012 is going to be a good year.