Move 2.0–Working Through the Bumps (Personal Update)

The current room unpacked. A bit cozy.
Image description: Bedroom with a cat on the bed.

So here's the news I was sitting on.

I'm moving again.

Again again. Like for the second time. As in, I just finished unpacking the last of the HBO series DVD's and even before the full shock and lamentation of the lack of a Carnivale season 3 had even reached stage three (bargaining), I was putting it right back in a box to move again.

So there I was in Hayward, resigned to foreseeable future of writing at least my break away debut novel from this tiny little room where I could touch my bed from my writing desk and my bookshelves had another tier of books hidden behind the ones facing outward, when I got the news from a friend of the goldilocks room.

No wait. That's not the right vibe.

The Goldilocks Room™ 

Yes. Much better.

It's a bit more expensive–right at the edge of what I budgeted for (though not "scary" since I took care of the Covered California stuff)–but everything else is fan-fucking-tastic. My commute from Hayward to Oakland where I watch The Contrarian was pretty much 35 minutes from door to door right now unless the roads are apocalypse movie empty. However from Lafayette, other than one particularly harried part of the day, it would only be fifteen minutes. My commute to where I teach will be cut from 70+ minutes to 15-20. It's in walking distance of a BART station and downtown Lafayette. Perhaps the best part for a room destined to be both fully functional groupie threesome babe lair and writing office is the room itself. I'm not exactly sure how the precise dimensions break down, but it's about half again as big as my current room by the math and feels about twice as big when I'm standing in it. And something about volume vs. surface area means I'm getting about eight feet more wall. Plus my roommate is super cool.

So while I am annoyed to literally have to turn around and move again, the opportunity had to be taken. And it's going to be ten kinds of awesome once move 2.0 is completed.

But Chris. How will you ever turn this post into some kind of folksy writing wisdom?

Well, I'm going to stop strumming my banjo for a moment, take this piece of wheat hay out of my mouth and tell the good folks reading that there's an important variation on the theme I've been talking about a lot lately. My life being the landfill inferno it is (that's a step up from dumpster fire, if you were wondering) I've been blowing a lot of smoke about how when the going gets tough, it's good to keep on writing. Your discipline will thank you. Your craft level not atrophying will thank you. And your emotional processing of your personal shitshow will probably thank you.

But sometimes the thing you're writing through isn't a tragic disaster. In fact, sometimes it's harder to keep writing when your life is about to transition in a definitively good direction. Particularly if that transition is going to be good for your writing. If you're about to get a break at work and go down to 30 hours, you might want to wait for that before you start writing. Or if you're about to move into a place with your very own writing office, you might be tempted to just wait until that happens. And in my case, I'll be getting out of a situation where I'm spending 20 hours a week commuting and cutting that down by over 75%, the urge is definitely there to just get myself moved and THEN worry about the writing.

Most of the reasons not to do this are the same whether you're waiting around for great stuff to kick in or bad stuff to kick out. Writing is a skill, and like any skill it will atrophy with disuse. Sitting down to write is a habit, and like any habit you can break it by not doing it. Creativity. Output. Vocabulary. Even smoothness of your sentences will suffer if you put writing aside for a while while you wait for life to either be great or stop being shitty.

But the main reason is that it's a never ending chain. How many times in your life have you not been looking forward to something good or hoping for something bad to be done. How many times have you truly not been in some sort of transition. That's just life. And if you spend the whole time telling yourself you're going to write when this next one thing comes along (and then the next and then the next) you'll turn around and realize life happened while you were waiting for the perfect circumstances in which to live it.

To Write What Will Never Be Read (Mailbox)

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You Can DOOOOO EEET!!!!!! (Menu tour)

You Can DOOOO EET!!!!!!!

Photo by AmyLovesYah

There's even more news coming (good this time and deets coming soon). I'm going to keep spreading out posts, but I will start to post on the weekends (tomorrow) and by next week we might get some brunch posts. Today though, I'm sticking with a menu as I take a day to deal with this development. 

A lot of people look at writing like it's some mystical process and writers like they're a different species. For years, the pedagogy of creative writing programs across the country was that genius could not be taught. Starting writers worry more about some mythical quality that they hope they have that will transform their dreams into success than they do about how much work it's going to take to get from "here" to "there."

But writing does not need to be mysterious. As a culture we've come to revere the genius rather than acknowledge the simple fact that most artists were relatively normal people who put in a shit ton of effort. Craft can be taught.  Creativity can be cultivated. Discipline can be exercised. And while writers like Shakespeare or Faulkner are certainly wordsmiths of the caliber that we can only admire from far, far below, most writers are just people who work very, very hard, think deeply about their words, and learn to tap into the creativity that we all have within us. They are human beings composed of the same spiraling chords of DNA as the rest of us.

And you can do it too!

The Holy Trinity of Writing Advice--The Only List You Really Need
Earning Your "Er."
Ziglar and Success.  What's Yours?
A Writer's Attitude: 15 Adjustments Toward Success
Using S.M.A.R.T.(S.) Goals in Writing
Progress is Progress
10 Reasons to Write Daily (Accentuate the Positive)
Don't Make it So Damned Hard!

July's Best

Despite the massive restructuring of an 11 year relationship, and moving out (along with the regularly scheduled busy-as-shit schedule of teaching summer school, househusbandry, and toddler wrangling), I still managed to have a couple of articles peak up through mediocrity like a crocus through the snow. They will go on to fame and fortune and a life of ease in our "Best of WAW" menu where they will be fed caviar by sculpted models of their preferred gender and never have to think of pedestrian things like scraping up page views again.

That is exactly how it works.

Kickstarter Results and Final Thoughts (Personal Update)
Our Kickstarter finished to unexpected success (and is probably the reason I'm not living on Top Ramen right now).

Your Post Here?
Sort of an odd post to find its way to our "best," but I just go where the numbers tell me. And they tell me that our call for more guest bloggers was a very popular post.

Quickie on the Fly (Personal Update)
A very short post during some of the most upheavaly of the upheavalness.

Best Modern Sci-Fi (Nominations and seconds needed)

Image description: many spaceships; one in the background exploding.

What is the best modern science fiction novel or series?  

We often hear about the canonical science fiction, but what about modern books and series? In the last thirty years we've seen a renaissance of subject matter and new voices within the genre.

We still need more nominations (and the nominations that exist need seconds if they're to make it to the poll).

Rules are on the original page if you're wondering if your nomination counts as "modern" or "science fiction."

Please please please put any new nominations on the comments of the original page. It'll make my life so much easier when I make the poll to have all the nominations in one place.

When it's Hardest, Just Keep Writing (Personal Update)

Believe it or not, I have to hold my fingers about ten cm off the keyboard
for them to show up in the shot.
Image Description: Writer in coffee shop "hard at work."

It's been a busy month!

I mean aren't they all busy months these days?  With health and relationship problems, moving, and toddlers?

Yes, but this one has been extra busy with busy sauce and a side order of chaos. Plus a tall glass of iced swamp. Wrapping up summer school and prepping for fall, moving, and all the accompanying packing and unpacking tend to fill one's days. Plus it's not like I ever stopped toddler wrangling.

These are the times it's tough to write. They're the times you want to shove it to the back burner, maybe put that blog on hiatus, skip a week or two of daily writing while you move, pause the work in progress, and pick it back up when the deluge of life has ebbed a little. It's not like anyone would blame you.

These are also some the most important times to stick with it.

Of course, I've talked a lot lately about writing being the way through the emotional turmoil and how many artists take refuge and solace in their art (ironically clinging to it more tightly when life is doing its best to rip it away), and none of that has changed.

But there are also more pragmatic reasons to force oneself to the page with a conscientious effort.

I'm moved now. There's still a collection of crap at my old place I need to round up like old USB's and a zillion power cables. I've had more time this week than last week that wasn't claimed by driving back and forth from Hayward to Oakland, and more time last week than the week before. By next week I will have had my first day obligation free since moving.

And the writing has returned to a brisk clip. My sessions at the computer are getting longer and longer, and even starting to come easier. Even though I definitely was working against some "at rest" inertia, I've gotten back into the groove without much difficulty. I'm writing now at a "hungry" canter, and eager for my schedule to free up even a little more so that I can go into a gallop.

Sadly, I know a lot of writers who would take weeks, months, or maybe even years to get back into a regimen after a life upset. Breaks have a way of metastasizing, and life upsets have a way of never really going away. A writer who sets their writing to the side risks becoming pinioned by the mercurial fates of the external world. (And understand I don't mean their work in progress, which can be an incredibly draining and labor intensive project that can't be invested in during times of real strife, but some kind of daily, creative energy.) The graveyard of writers is littered with the bones of those whose last words were: "I'll get back to that as soon as life slows down."

Life never really slows down. Life is sort of a jerk like that.

You can either learn to make the time and space on the fly, or you can live your life waiting for the patches of perfect conditions which, should they come at all, will be so few and far between that the discipline and craft skill to fully exploit them will have atrophied.

Perhaps one of my most fortunate twists of fate was to learn how to be a writer long before I knew a thing about how to write. I figured out in my late teens and early twenties how to deal with the motivation and discipline part of sitting down to write even as I churned out ridiculous hackneyed manuscripts of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Willow clones with the serial numbers barely even filed all the way off.

Still, hacking my way through my own awful prose is really a secondary issue, especially if I respect the full scope of the writing process enough to not be afraid of drafting and lots of revision. If I had to pick a problem to deal with as a writer, I would pick "needs to revise a lot" every day and twice on cliche day.

I feel terrible, though, for some writers who are spectacular at the wordsmithing part, but can't reliably sit down and make it happen. A ton of writers who are a LOT better than me, and probably than I will ever be, can make something magical happen every time they put a pen to paper. However they just can not find the motivation on a regular basis. They write once or twice a month when a flash of inspiration moves them, and are frustrated for the other 99% of the time with their writer's block and unsurmountable life circumstances.

Through my move though, and all the surrounding personal drama, I never stopped writing every day (even if some of the sessions were only a few solid minutes). For me, that discipline has been absolutely key to being able to just restart like clockwork the minute life returned to a simmer.

Post Shell Game

Folks, I need to spend my morning making an extra trip back to my old place to collect the last little bits of things like USB drives and old electronics (plus I need to throw out a chair that I guess isn't wanted).  I'm going to put today's post up tomorrow, tomorrow's up Wednesday, and if there's no guest post by Thursday, I'll catch up on that day.

Don't worry, I'll still sit down and do my daily writing for an hour when I get home from work tonight.