Y.A. NOVEL CHALLENGE UPDATE 2 - ROMANCE AND REALITY

Over the years, I've heard a lot of writers try to explain why they write. Many of them say that it isn't simply that they want to write, they need to write. It's a compulsion, a habit, an all-consuming drive. Which sounds very romantic until you realize you're basically describing a symptom of an anxiety-based mental illness.

We have a conception of writers, and all artistic people, really, as mad bohemian romantics, scrounging a living from half-burnt candles and day-old bread, huddled in their garrets, conducting passionate love affairs that society will never understand. But when you're trying to make a living doing something creative, the grubby romance of huddling under a blanket with your lover because you couldn't afford to pay the heating bill gets old pretty fast.

One time, I had a writing professor tell everyone in my fiction writing class that if we wanted to be writers -- real writers -- we should psychologically prepare ourselves for the inevitable fact that we were going to get divorced at least once. At the time, I was in a long-distance relationship with the man I would eventually marry, and the thought of us not lasting was crushing. I could barely bring myself to produce anything that semester. Did I really want to trade all of my hopes for future happiness in order to be a writer? What was the point of creating anything if the dissolution of love was its ultimate outcome?

And then I realized my professor was full of shit.

I didn't have to get divorced if I was a writer, any more than I had to do psychotropic drugs (Coleridge) or develop a drinking problem (Hemingway) or sleep my way through early 20th-century literary circles (Millay). While we're on the topic of Millay, consider her famous poem, "First Fig,"

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--

It gives a lovely light!

It's lovely and poetic, and evocative of the passionate romance of creation. But as a guide to the creative life, it's the worst thing you could aspire to. As for me, I want to last the night. I want to love. I want to have a balanced life full of friends, satisfying work, and time with my family. I don't want to develop a substance abuse problem or a mental illness. There is enough suffering in the world without cultivating it within yourself in the service of art.

As I continue to work on this summer's writing challenge, I am trying to keep this idea of balance in mind. I spent the last year working on my Massive Mysterious Project, along with numerous smaller writing projects, and I don't think I did the best job of making sure that I gave enough of my time to my husband and my work. The MMP was so omnipresent, so all-consuming, that toward the end of it, I could barely sleep because it was still racing through my mind at 3 a.m.

My goal this summer is not simply to write a novel, but to figure out how to remain sane during the process and still maintain the level of dedication required to finish it on time. Just as it isn't necessary to get divorced to be a real writer, it must also be possible to develop healthy writing habits that don't cause you to devolve into anxiety-driven fits of madness or leave you sleepless every night. Because isn't the point of doing something you love to make yourself happy by doing that thing, not to make yourself miserable?

Y.A. NOVEL CHALLENGE UPDATE 1 - LOVE INTEREST HANDICAP

A few weeks ago, I announced that I was taking on writer Theodora Goss's challenge to write a Y.A. novel over the course of the summer. I've gotten a little bit of a late start because I was finishing up work on a Massive Mysterious Project, to be revealed here at a later date. But earlier this week, I started on the novel challenge in earnest. I've added a tab to the top of my blog, where you can see my word count and how far I still have to go to meet my summer goal. (I don't know why, but I find graphs of my progress really motivating. I suspect this may be evidence that I'm a really dull person at heart. Or maybe just a Virgo. It's certainly one of the things I've liked best about NaNoWriMo when I've taken part.)

Anyway, I thought I'd use my updates to talk about what I'm discovering about myself as a writer during this process. There are some things all writers have in common, but we also have our weird quirks and hangups. What works for one person doesn't always work for another. Part of becoming a writer is figuring out how you operate, what motivates you, and what will stop you cold, staring at a blinking cursor.

Earlier this week, I ran into the Romantic Interest wall. The main character of my novel is a girl (hey, write what you know, right?), and while it isn't the entire point of the story, she's going to have a romantic interest mixed into her adventures. I reached the point in the story where she meets him for the very first time and. . . stopped. This guy was a blank spot in my head. I kind of knew what I wanted him to BE like, but I had not idea how I wanted him to look. Here is the point where I confess that most of the men in my stories are based on my husband to some degree or another. Sure, he may have a different haircut, or maybe some tattoos, but there's always some aspect of him in there.

Totally understandable, right?

As I was staring at my screen, this suddenly became clear to me. Oh my god, are all of my male characters going to look the same? Are they all going to have dark hair and really sexy shoulders? (Sorry, honey.) I started desperately trying to think of other inspirations for this character's physical appearance. But Daniel Craig aside, my taste in men tends to be. . . ahem, more based on personality and charisma than conventional attractiveness (see here and here).

So what did I do? I made it dark. She's going to meet him eventually and get a better look at him, but for now, I'm at the very beginning of the story. I can't let myself lose momentum or start agonizing over how one particular character is going to look when he eventually surfaces, or else this story is going to stall out before the end of the first chapter. I can give myself time to figure out how this guy is going to look -- probably he's going to have adorably messy hair (again, sorry, honey) -- and still keep the story moving. I can work with my romantic interest handicap rather than fighting it.

Come back soon for more startling revelations about my brain on literature!

A DARK TOPOGRAPHY INTERVIEW

My friend Max Cooper, who takes amazing atmospheric photos detailing life in the cities and forgotten places of North Carolina's Appalachian mountains, has interviewed me for his blog, A Dark Topography.

Max is one of the most interesting people I know, and my go-to contact in the case of Zombie Apocalypse. He's also one of the few people I've met who I would call a natural storyteller -- believe me, you would want him around your campfire, not only because he could tell a mean ghost story, but because he would probably come armed against said zombie attacks (or more likely, bears).  His blog is a mix of fascinating photographs, essays, and stories, often capturing the stark beauty of everyday life in unexpected places. Here is a person who can take photos aboard a cruise ship and make them look mysterious.

So, when Max asked if he could interview me earlier this year, I was genuinely excited. I knew he would come up with some thoughtful, unusual questions, and I wasn't disappointed. He also took a great photo of me that makes me look like I'm about to turn someone into a toad, and even more impressive to my mind, he managed to capture the view from my office window in the same shot. (And in case you were wondering, I have been informed by my sisters that, yes, my hair really does look that crazy in real life.) I don't think I was a very good subject, but Max is a professional, and managed to make something dramatic out of me and my office anyway.

If you'd like to read the interview, head on over to his blog. Like me, you might soon find yourself addicted to his musings on life, art, and the danger inherent in both.