Missing Mojo

 

Gonna try and rattle some bones and get my mojo back this week.  Photo copyright Lori Gravley. 

Writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all.

–Charles Bukowski

In a week and a half, I’ll be getting a new kitchen.  But first I have to move my kitchen into a small space, pack away lots of extra stuff, demolish the old kitchen, and paint the walls down to a bare white canvas. 

Yeesh, why did I plan this for November?  

But honestly, this wouldn’t be a problem most years.  I’d make writing my priority and the other stuff would get done in my spare time. Now, the sun is down, and I haven’t yet written a single word. 

It has nothing to do with the stupid kitchen or my failed marriage, or the shingles virus that is still making me feel uncomfortable in my skin.  

It has to do with my missing mojo.  I’m just not feeling it. I haven’t felt it all year.  I feel like I’m just phoning it in without really feeling committed. And, insert favorite expletive(s) here, I’m tired of feeling this way.  

I know that sitting down to work even when I’m not feeling it is one way to invite the magic back. Honestly, I don’t believe in writer’s block, but I think that what I have had this year is writer’s block.  

Which is just an easier way to say this:

·     I’ve worked too much this year as I’ve tried to get myself into good financial shape for my impending dissolution. 

·     I’ve had low-level depression this year as I’ve grieved but not been able to truly move beyond my 28-year marriage. 

·     My support system has been weakened by all the travel I’ve done this year.  I’ve only been in town for 14 of the past 44 weeks. Some of the travel has been personal, but much of it has been work, and some of that work has been conducting training solo, which means I’m alone in the evenings.  That can be nice, but this year it’s been difficult. 

·      I have worked very hard at my writing for the past eight years, and I don’t have much to show for it.  I’m feeling frustrated by the limitations of traditional publishing, but I’m also not sure I want to branch out into self-publishing. 

So, this low writing energy makes sense, but I’m not going through this whole month complaining every day about how hard it is to write.  To combat this writer's block I'm going to implement some new habits this week to see if I can find some joy. 

Routines, exercise, and limiting social media are three frequent recommendations for overcoming writer’s block, so I’ve taken those suggestions and put them into this week's plan.  

1.  I’m going to solidify my morning routine and add an hour and a half of writing to it. Here’s what I do in the morning: coffee, journal, yoga, meditate, get dressed.  For the next week, that routine will be coffee, journal, yoga, meditate, write for 1.5 hours, get dressed.

2.  I’m going to spend at least 15 minutes each day working on a new Pinterest board for the new novel and the new world. 

3.  I will not get on Instagram or Facebook until after lunch or 12pm, whichever is later. 

4.  I will take a short walk after lunch (and an hour of social media) and then I will come back and write for another hour.  

5.  Writing comes first, chores come later.  

6.  I will make a reward chart and track my successes in the above on paper.  

7.  I will listen to the voices in my head. I think I’ve got some hidden critics making it through into my writing time, so I’ll try to shine a little light on them this week, so I can respond to them appropriately. 

I’ll let you know how I do next Sunday.  Oh, and another note about how to overcome writer’s block.  Choose a different project and work on that for a little while.  I’ve been doing that already this week.  Thank you for joining me.  

Now, time to write.  

Doubts and Decisions

Piles and piles of drafts, copyright Lori Gravley

I planned a new romance in early October, got my characters down, laid out my primary beats. I was ready for NaNo early because I had to travel beginning on Oct. 16.  

Then, I had time to think, and a new world began to form in my head.  A series of novels that would fit more readily in line with my brand for young people--interesting characters, a vivid world--ohhh, exciting.  So, I did some character development and decided I’d just pants a little with my beat cards (the note cards I have the describe each of the beats in general, I’ll talk about these in a later post).  

Last night was kick off, and . . . I wrote 1300 words.

Every single word felt like a struggle.  I went to sleep asking why. I often do this as sleep gives me answers that I sometimes can't find in the bustle of awakeness.  

When I woke up this morning, I realized it’s because though I love to write new things, love to create new characters and worlds, what I really need to do this year is to tend the old ones.  

In the past ten years, I have written: 

• twenty-five picture books

• one chapter book

• four poetry chapbooks.

• two full-length poetry collections

• one verse memoir

• two medieval mysteries for middle grade (in a series)

• two adult romances (with an entire world and possibilities for more)

• two paranormal mid-grade novels (in a four-book series)

• two stand-alone middle-grade contemporary novels

• a book about putting a poetry collection together

• a book of essays on writing

• a memoir about marriage

I have revised some of these projects upwards of forty times. I have sent them out sporadically, but still:

• I do not have an agent. 

• I do not have a book in the world. 

• I do not have a contract for a book. 

I woke up knowing that my plans for this month needed to change.  My world and my characters won’t go away, but writing my 41^st book wasn’t actually going to move my career forward.  

And I do want a career in writing.  I love the rush of energy that comes from creating a new world, it’s that post-partum joy of being a new mother that is such a rush.  But if I just keep pushing these babies out without helping them grow to adulthood, I’m doing my darlings and myself a disservice.  So, I’m announcing right now that this year, I’m a rebel.  

I will rewrite the book that I’ve been trying to rewrite for a year, Wild Things.  It’s a book I love and that I think might have a place in the MG contemporary market.  As a reward, I’ve told my world and characters that I will give them January and February to come alive in this world. 

After all, I’ll need something to do while I’m sitting around waiting to hear from agents about Wild Things.  

Writing Amid the Chaos

Image copyright Lori Gravley

2019 has been a difficult year.  A young man I considered a third son died at the end of 2018. A friendship that I thought would last a lifetime ended painfully.  My marriage of 28 years gave its last gasp. My dog is dying. My mother’s Alzheimer’s has become so apparent even she admits she might need some help. My younger son has made some difficult and painful choices on his journey to adulthood. Yep, suckity for sure.  

Many of the difficulties are still in flux. I live in a 128-square-foot trailer that was once my office behind the beautiful 1880s farmhouse that I’ve worked hard to make a home but that we’ll be selling in the new year. We’re filing the dissolution papers in the new year for financial reasons even though it’s painful to have to interact and just seems to be prolonging the suffering. My son’s choices still haven’t resolved themselves. My dog is dying slowly, and while I’m glad to still have her companionship, it's difficult to see her suffer.  

But my word for 2019 is flourish, and, you know what, in many ways, I am. I’ve almost completed a new professional credential.  I’ve sent my work into the world. My writing is stronger than it has ever been. I love my vintage trailer, and this year I bought a van. Next year, I’ll live part-time in my trailer on my mom’s property, helping my stepfather care for her; part-time in hotel rooms for work; and part-time in a 21-foot Ram Promaster that has been made into a beautiful Winnebago RV. My tiny dreams are coming true in interesting ways. I am hurting. I am grieving. But I am flourishing. 

This year will be my eleventh NaNo and my tenth win.  I’ve built a new young adult world and made some interesting plans for this year’s novel, and I have an outline for another adult romance that I’ll draft in 2020 (I was prepared early, but then I changed my mind and decided to write YA instead).  The trick or treaters are knocking on the door, and I’m still working on my beats, but that’s okay.  I’ll wake up tomorrow, plan some, write some, downsize and pack a little more, and snuggle with my puppy.  

Really, I’m always writing in the middle of some sort of chaos.  But aren’t we all.  When I first participated in NaNo, my son was twelve.  I wrote while my husband was in Iraq.  I wrote through our first separation. I wrote when my older son and his then-girlfriend (now wife) moved to town for college and grad school.  

Someone said to me a couple of weeks ago, “There are other months you can write novels in.”  And I do write all year long, but I love the wonderful collective energy that is NaNoWriMo, and I welcome this creative collective as a still point in the middle of my shifting world. 

I hope you will, too. There will always be reasons not to write.  There will always be unfavorable external circumstances, but that’s one thing I’ve learned from NaNo, it doesn’t matter what’s happening on the outside, I can create stillness inside of my daily writing practice.

Love for Amy Krouse Rosenthal

#loveforamykrouserosenthal

Love is a transformative experience.  We know that.  We assume that those we love must be in our lives, pushing us, prodding us, arguing with us, supporting us in order to feel that transformative power, but this morning, as I cry my eyes out over the death of a stranger, I’m coming to realize that what we love--even if it’s distant, unknowable, and other--can still transform us.

This story begins perhaps eight years ago.  I read a review of a memoir, The Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.  At least, I think that’s how I found it.  A best of list, a must-read list, I can’t remember anymore.  But it had two things that meant a lot to me--encyclopedias and ordinary life--so I thought I would like it. 

It didn’t take long to read. I shared excerpts with a friend who was writing a memoir.  I ate it up, I loved it so.  I read all the time--five, six books a week, more if it’s poetry or children’s book week.  But I don’t always fall in love the way I did with Amy’s ordinary life.  I don’t always find the website of the writer.  I don’t always order every book they’ve written from the library.  But I did after I read Amy. 

I had my MFA.  I wrote memoir and poetry.  Then, I stopped writing.  My second child, born eight years after my first so that I would have time to continue writing and building my writing career, was on the autistic spectrum.  He did not sleep.  He was challenging.  He needed a lot of outside support.  I stopped writing.  But when I met Amy (through her book), he was in middle school and doing much better.  I had time to myself again.  I had stopped writing for adults, but had begun to study books for children, picture books, mid-grade novels, science books.  I had written a mid-grade novel over one summer and fallen in love with Kate DiCamillo.  I was thinking about writing for children.  I was studying writing for children. 

But Amy’s memoir inspired me.  Maybe, I thought, I should go back to that work.  I didn’t know anyone who wrote for children and adults. 

Then I went to Amy’s website.  And under her umbrella (yes, it's really an umbrella)—books for kids and books for grown ups. 

Maybe, I thought to myself.  Possibly? 

I read Amy’s picture books, I liked them as much as I did her Encyclopedia.  I kept writing, doing my work--writing poems for adults and picture books and novels for children.  Occasionally, I wrote poems for children, but mostly they were for adults.  I worked, I read, I learned.  Every so often, I’d visit Amy on her web page, just to see what she was up to.  To check in with her the way I did with friends on Facebook or through email.  I ordered her new books, watched the Beckoning of Lovely videos.  And then, one time, I found the PantoneProject website.  Ohhh, color.  I submitted a picture.  I submitted a story.  Amy published my picture.  Then, Amy published my little prose poem/story. 

I had not published anything in fifteen years.  But Amy thought my writing was good enough.  Okay, I’ll admit, I don’t even know if it was Amy who was doing the selecting, but I felt like I knew her. When she accepted my work, I felt like she had seen me and found me to be lovely, to be good enough.  The best writers make us feel that way, don’t they?  Like someone can see inside us, like someone cares enough to show us how to live. 

After that, I had more courage.  I sent out more poems.  I finished books.  I went back to Amy’s site when I designed my website.  (I still think she has the best website ever.)   

Poems got published, agents said nice things.  I wrote more.  I’m still trying to find an agent for my picture books.  I’m still submitting poems and waiting for more yesses than nos. I'm still writing, creating, imagining.

When I was younger, I completed an MFA.  Leslie Ullman and Ben Saenz cheered me on.  But then my writing life went on pause.  When I was ready to start again, Amy cheered me on.  Not because she knew my work, but because of who she was--an energetic, inspiring, openhearted person who seemed to share all of herself with the whole world.  Who didn’t seem to think she had to fit anyone’s idea of what a children’s writer, a memoirist, a videographer, a community organizer was supposed to be.  Amy cheered me on without ever meeting me. 

I’m heartbroken.  I’ve cried for nearly an hour, and even now, my eyes are getting a little blurry while I think again of a world without Amy.  The love she poured into her books and into her projects has transformed me.

But though I’m bereft at the thought of a world without Amy, I’m also happy to know that her work is still here.  She’s left a little part of herself, indeed she’s left as much as I’ve ever known of her behind.  She will still teach and inspire others.  

I’m sorry for her husband, for her children, for her friends.  And I’m sorry for Amy. I have a feeling she might have liked to say more to this world during her time in it or maybe just wanted a little more time. I’m sorry for her readers.  I’m sure some of them, like me, are sitting at their computers and crying as if they’ve lost a friend. 

And I’m so glad she was my friend.  A friend I shared so much with.  A friend who led me to my best self.  A friend who transformed me with her love.  A friend I never had a chance to meet.  Sweet rest, Amy.  Thank you so much, for encouraging us to be more, to do more for others.  Thank you so much, for everything. #LoveForAmyKrouseRosenthal

On No

Screen shot from Duotrope 2/18/2017.  Poems sent this month. 

I hate the word no.  Ask my husband, my children, my friends.  I hate it. 

And it’s not that I was spoiled as a little girl.  I wasn’t.  Indeed, no was a frequent companion.  So as an adult, if I hear no too often, I fall into a well.

That makes it challenging to be a writer. Working on my resistance to no is one of the primary self-advancement tasks that I’ve set for myself this year. 

Even before this year, I’ve been working with my aversion to no.   Still--no, we don’t want these poems--no, we can’t represent you--no, this group, fellowship, etc.  is not for you--hits like a punch in the gut. 

I hate NO.

So, I’m practicing my own aversion therapy.  This month I’ve submitted 120 poems to very low acceptance journals (<1.5% acceptance rates) with quick turn-around times.  I’ve gotten 38 no’s so far.  But I haven’t stopped there.  I committed to sending the poems back out to another journal without compunction, without revision.  I’ve been busily checking off my submissions, posting them on Duotrope, and trying to smile when I send the poems off to the next journal. 

But today I woke up cranky.  When my husband asked what was wrong, I told him I was sick of no.  As an antidote, I sent out 31 more poems.  I’m feeling a little bit better.

I’m a writer.  It is a given that I will hear no more frequently than I will hear yes.  I’m trying to make friends with it.  I’m trying to remember that it’s not about me.  I’m doing my best work.  I’m sending out excellent poems and children’s stories. 

I’m looking for the audience that will say yes.  I will find it if I can wade through enough no's.

A Life in Paper: Organzing Poetry

© Lori Gravley 

I know, many of you reading this are digital natives, and you’ve totally figured out how to do all this work without ever killing a tree.  Me, I buy recycled paper. 

Essentially, my paper file management for poetry mimics my computer file management. Computer file management comes first, but the paper management is essential for me. 

I have one giant notebook with three sections: Submitted Work, Work to Submit, and Published. 

I keep that published section because it makes me feel good, but it also means that I have paper copies of every single poem that I think is good enough to publish.  I created this before I began putting my book of poems together as a way to track my work that felt more concrete, but having this notebook made the process of putting my book together much easier.

Within each of these sections, I’ve arranged the poems in alphabetical order. 

The biggest drawback of my paper system is that it’s not portable. It lives on my desk.  I may take it to a local coffee shop once in a while, but usually I have to work on this book on my huge dining room table. 

I wish I could let it go, but I can’t.  Indeed, I was quite stuck in my progress on my book until I committed to and found a paper system that worked for me.  If you feel stuck, you might give a simplified paper filing system a try. 

Resource Sharing: Reading as Research

Check out the amazing presenters in this year's ReFoReMo.

Early in 2016, I found a link to something called ReFoReMo (Reading for Research Month).  I promptly signed up.  After all, since I'd committed to reading 1,000 picture books in 2016, I might as well get the most out of them.

Boy, did ReFoReMo help.  A wonderful community of writers shared tools for keeping track of reading, approaches to texts, and success stories from authors who had truly turned their reading into research for their own stories.

I discovered some of my new favorite picture books during ReFoReMo last year, and I look forward to seeing what I'll discover this year.  Sign-ups start on Feb. 15.  I have my calendar marked.  I hope you'll join me.

Find out more at ReFoReMo 2017.