Tag: On Writing

Random Rants, tutto e niente

I have a Saucy Suspicion that those Super Important Things I Did to Avoid Writing the Next Great American Novel were Really Just PROCRASTINATION!

Tina Stewart Brakebill

I love the word “saucy.” It’s a great stand-in for sassy (when that feels like it cheapens the meaning) or rude (when that feels too aggressive or offensive). It’s a perfect descriptor for my growing suspicion that I’ve tricked myself yet again into wasting untold hours when I should have been writing!

Cheeky Skepticism works too. But I’m going with Saucy Suspicion. It sounds a bit like a title to a film noir. I like that.  Thanks to Putting My Feet in the Dirt for the perfect words

See I’m doing it again. Nibbling at the edges instead of getting right to it (or should I say WRITE to it)?

PROCRASTINATION!

I didn’t used to procrastinate. I was one of those annoying “always get things done early” kind of gals. But then I entered academia and everything changed. Or should I say grading changed everything. Like most of my teaching colleagues, I developed surefire strategies to avoid it. These strategies may have not been super imaginative but they were reliable. For example, if I had 180 essay exams to grade, then I would realize that I NEEDED to vacuum the entire house. Or if I had a pile of research papers waiting to be read, then clearly it was time to wipe down all the wooden baseboards and trim with orange oil. The pattern was predictable. If you saw me hand-washing and polishing all the wine glasses then you knew that I had 62 primary source analysis projects to grade. I’d do almost any kind of cleaning to avoid the RED pencil!

red pencil on a red surface
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But those were simpler times. These days, I’m not just avoiding grading. Now I fancy myself a “writer.” So I’m no longer simply sidestepping the moment when I must read students’ writing. I’m eluding my own. Deadlines approach and my mind fills with existential despair and a certainty that my writing (thus my life) has no real purpose. So now, procrastination must fill the hole created by a self-imposed crisis that grows deeper each day. And simple cleaning no longer suffices.

Or maybe I’m just lazy. I do like to just hang. So maybe ….

Nope. I’m sticking with existential crisis. Sounds more writer-like.

So back to my story of procrastination addiction. Among other things, I am currently writing a novel. I’m about 80-90% done with a good draft which means that it’s about time for that despair to start kicking in. I don’t have an agent or a contract so the only deadline I face is my own. (And the fact that it’s a timely kind of story in some ways so I’d like to get it out there into the world while we still have a world.) But the sight of a finish line (even if it’s self-imposed) fills me with a growing panic. Enter procrastination 2.0.

This version began this past weekend. My magazine assignment work was finished and submitted. (I always get these things done early. Mmmmm. Interesting. I wonder what Freud would say about that?) This meant that I had about three weeks I could devote almost entirely to working on the novel. So much writing could be accomplished! I just needed to make myself a cup of coffee and the writing could commence!!

But wait … my coffee cup is so stained on the bottom and sides that I’m not sure it it’s clean. How can I concentrate if I think I’m drinking from a tainted mug? Maybe I should hand-wash all the cups. There’s only six of them so that’ll just take a few minutes and then it’s time to WRITE! (I know this sounds like the tried-and-true cleaning strategy but just wait. It escalates.)

So out they all come. Soak in hot soapy water. Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. The stains won’t budge. And now I’m obsessing over another facet of the supposedly clean (albeit stained) mugs, which leads to the following conversation with my ever-loving always patient husband.

wake up smell the coffee wall decoratio
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Me: “Is it just me or do they have a weird smell when you stick your noise in them?”

Spouse: “Uuh. I don’t usually stick my nose in the cup.”

Me: “then smell it” (as I aggressively stick the cup in his face)

Spouse: “Ummm. I don’t smell anything but if you do then …”

Me: “Can the coating on stoneware come off?

Spouse: “I don’t …”

Me: “Maybe we’re drinking mold!?”

Spouse: “I don’t …”

Me: “If it’s mold, it will make us sick!!”

Spouse: (Wisely responding) “I don’t know that it’s really mold but if you’re worried then we can always get new mugs.”

This leads to some random googling to determine if we can get sick drinking from the mugs if the coating has indeed worn off (no definitive answer found) interspersed with a search for new coffee mugs in “fun” colors. The unsuccessful google rabbit-hole search for “fun” colored mugs consumes minute after minute after hour so by the time I emerge it’s nearly noon.

So our plan for the rest of the day is now clear. We must go out for lunch and then maybe go by Bed, Bath & Beyond and look for new coffee mugs! I’ve got a stack of 20% off coupons waiting to be used! And oh yeh speaking of coupons, we have a coupon for 20% off at the wine store so maybe we should do that while we’re out too.

Fast forward to BB&B: found the perfect coffee mugs! Sturdy. Big handles.  I like to be able to put my whole hand around the handle—none of those tiny little two-finger handles for me. Pretty colors. On sale. We only had six mugs before but maybe we should get eight of these? Sometimes I have to get one out of the dishwasher before it’s been run. This way, we’ve always got clean ones. Good plan. Or Nine! That’s three of each color. So yes. Nine it is. OK let’s go. But wait. Now that I’m here I’m realizing that I’m hosting book club next month and I’m not sure we have six wine glasses? Maybe we should get this box of four? They’re on sale. Plus coupons!

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OK that crisis has been solved. One more stop at the wine store yields a case of wine (at 20% off!!) But by the time we finish all of this shopping the day is nearly gone. Too late to write today.

Plus I should check out one of these new bottles!

But tomorrow I’m on it!!

Tomorrow comes.

I’ve made myself a cup of coffee in one my new mugs. All is right with the world. Time to write. Well maybe first I should empty the dishwasher. I know. I know. I usually load and my loving spouse unloads but I’m standing right here and it will only take a minute. Wait. What? Oh no! We seem to have a bit of problem. These mugs are much bigger than the old ones and our cabinets are really small. I can only fit four of them in!!! And that’s not all—I can’t find any place to put these four new wineglasses!! Crisis!!!

Obviously I can’t write with this hanging over my head. Husband is looped into the new crisis. And once he understands the seriousness of the problem, we can proceed with the task at hand: a complete reorganizing of the cabinets. Everything must come out. Decisions must be made. Keep. Donate. Trash. This takes the better part of the midday so once again, it’s not really a good time to just get started. I’m really a morning person so I’m never going to be able to get into a good writing rhythm if I just start now.

Tomorrow. I will write tomorrow.

OK it’s tomorrow. Let’s go! But oh no I have a problem! I realize that I haven’t finished the book for Monday’s book club. I clearly can’t be that kind of club member. I’m a writer! (Plus I picked the book and must bring the discussion questions.)

So today I read. But tomorrow. Tomorrow I will write.

Another tomorrow. Oh wait I forgot that I’m getting my hair done today. If I start writing then I’ll just have to stop in mid-thought and I hate that! Plus I really need to spend time looking for suggestions for next month’s book club book.

But tomorrow. Tomorrow is THE DAY!

Morning has broken … and damn it’s pretty out there today. What? The spouse is going to the beach! No. I’ve got to write. Well… Wait. Maybe it will get my head in a good space if I got to the beach. A nice beach walk is good for the brain. Okay. I’m in.

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But tomorrow. Tomorrow I will write a minimum of 1500 words! I will get through the next section. I will conquer!!

Tomorrow arrives early with a sore throat, cough, and a stuffy head. Bingo! I have procrastinated myself into a horrible horrible summer cold. Can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t write.

apartment bed carpet chair
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Maybe tomorrow. I’ll feel better tomorrow.

Four more tomorrows come and go. Still sick. No writing with this foggy brain.

A bright new tomorrow arrives. Feeling a bit better. Ok novel writing here I come. Ideas bubbling. Coffee brewing.

happy coffee
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Mmmm? What about my blog? I haven’t posted anything in a week or so. I should check in. Visit some stuff I follow. Maybe post a haiku. Can’t let it sit idle too long. Right? Read. Read. Read. Oooo great haiku writing prompt—poison/past—I love it. (Side note: If you’re into haikus check out https://ronovanwrites.com/2018/09/03/ronovanwrites-weekly-haiku-poetry-prompt-challenge-217-poisonpast/)

OK that’s a sign. I’ll work on a haiku this morning and then get started on the novel. Hours pass. Haiku done. I like it! But I’m so tired. Being sick is exhausting. No more today. But …

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I AM getting back to the novel.

Tomorrow comes. The sun rises. My mind is clicking. Coffee brewed. MacBook open. Ready to open up the novel draft. Laughing to myself as I think about all the ways I’ve avoided it this last ten days or so. Wait a minute. Procrastination! That might make a slightly amusing blog post. But I promised I’d work on the book today! But this is kind a timely idea. If I work on the book and then write about procrastination will it feel authentic? I WILL have procrastinated on writing about procrastination—is that good enough to justify waiting?

google search engine on macbook pro
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OK. I’ll take a few minutes and jot down some ideas. BUT. TOMORROW!!!!

Tomorrow I write.

Unless … Oh no! There’s that saucy suspicion again!

How about y’all? Do you procrastinate? What’s your best method? Any ideas on how to avoid it?

Haiku & Other Poetry, History, Random Rants, tutto e niente

This is Not a Haiku

Tina Stewart Brakebill

Haikus Calm my Mind

Structure and Form Soothe My Soul

With the World Gone Mad  

OK. I lied. That IS a haiku. But this post is not just a haiku. It’s about writing. Specifically it’s about how creating haikus is helping me practice self-care in a chaotic world. As a control-freak, I thrive on structure. I’m not as bad as I used to be but, at best, I’m in semi-recovery. And the current state of the world has not been good for that semi-recovery. Every day—or more accurately—every hour something deeply upsetting is revealed, uncovered, announced, posted, tweeted, or shouted from the rooftop. Children ripped from their asylum-seeking parents. Oh wait, it’s worse. They’re being kept in pins. Kennedy is retiring. Oh wait, it’s worse. His son was involved in a billion-dollar deal with trump. Trump gave Kim-Jong Un a photo op and got nothing in return. Oh wait, it’s worse. North Korea is expanding its nuclear capabilities. If I listen very carefully I can almost hear Heather Locklear telling me: “and so on and so on and so on ….” (Oops, showing my age. What ever happened to Faberge shampoo? Is it still a thing? Note to self—google it.)

[Side note for your pleasure: Still don’t know if Faberge still exists, but this gem is still out there! And so on and so on …

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Where was I?

So in the midst of this non-stop horror train that we’re on, I am trying to find equilibrium. I’m setting mind boundaries. I’m staying informed but I’m not immersing myself in the 24/7 cycle. I’m reading a variety of sources, but I’m no longer trying to keep up on the Fox “News” or Infowars-style version of events. Their distance from reality and constant reverence to Trump, as if he is some sort of god-figure, is too surreal for my brain to process. I will engage with people seeking to have an informed discussion but I no longer engage with people that just want to argue or want to insist that “being civil” means that we should ignore the blatant racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and classism that underlies much of this administration’s actions.  I have chosen to protect (control!) my space for the sake of my sanity.

Because sometimes, on bad days, I’m afraid that we have gone through the looking glass. The Mad Hatter has taken control. Too many people have drank the tea. On good days, when I’m feeling optimistic I want to believe that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” (As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so eloquently noted when he paraphrased a sermon by the radical abolitionist, Theodore Parker.) But I’m also an historian (and I can do basic math!) so I know that arc has been bending for a damn long time! Too long. It’s been 165 years since Parker’s 1853 speech and over 5o years since Dr. King’s 1965 Selma speech and justice still seems far in the distance. And if we continue to ignore the very real social, judicial, and economic effects of that delay in justice, it will continue to be only a fuzzy idea, always out of reach.

I’m going to get back to haikus and writing. I promise, but as long as I’m quoting Theodore Parker, I’ll throw another one into the mix. “The domestic function of the woman does not exhaust her powers… To make one half of the human race consume its energies in the functions of housekeeper, wife and mother is a monstrous waste of the most precious material God ever made.” And another one: “But I confess I mourn that where her work is as profitable as man’s, her pay is not half so much. …. It is so in all departments of woman’s work that I am acquainted with.” Once more I remind us, this was 165 years ago! These are not new ideas people!! And again I say, if we continue to ignore the very real socio-economic effects of the mindset that prioritizes women’s roles as wife & mother to the exclusion or marginalization of all others, then true equality will continue to be only a fuzzy idea, always out of reach.

So … I’ll hop off my soapbox for now.

And come back to the supposed subject of this post. Haikus. The deceptively simple haiku. To comply to its rules while still saying something has become a process that calms me. If feeds my need for control and it forces me to think big and small at the same time. I must be concise. I must convey meaning. Bringing those two things together has become the perfect writing challenge to balance my shaky equilibrium in this time of twitter wars and infowars and real wars. So thanks to Matsuo Basho and Ezra Pound. Perhaps I should apologize for diminishing the art form with silliness and politics, BUT …without apology, this is a haiku.

Haiku as Self Care

Might Sink Art for Ego’s Sake

But I Plead the Fifth   

What calms your soul??

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History, Random Rants, tutto e niente

Seeing Like a Writer: How Do I Separate Facts for Fiction?

Tina Stewart Brakebill

Living in a city provides a constant stream of interesting sights. A thirty-something white woman walks down the street wearing only an oversized t-shirt and a pair of Converse high tops. A possibly biracial teenager on a skateboard rolls past me and I hear him say (in a rather joyous tone) “fuck you” to whomever he’s talking to on his phone. At my gym, an African American man works out every morning by himself in khaki pants and work boots. An elderly white woman orders a coffee and a muffin and then spends the next hour reading a hardback copy of Stephen King’s “Misery” An Asian man in a cowboy hat stands at the bar drinking an IPA at the local pub. Two white girls (hair and make-up nearly identical in style and application) stride effortlessly down the sidewalk in their platform heeled sandals while they both stare directly at their phones.

I have a writing friend / accountability partner / bitch session buddy that thrives on sights like these. She sees them as a this kind of inspiration. I often find myself wishing that I saw the world more like her. In my mind, her perspective on the world is how a “real” writer looks at things. I know that most fiction writers see these random sightings as more than just “hey look at that” moments. They’ll take note in their mental (or actual) writing notebooks because they know these glimpses can be used as a muse on which to build characters and/or stories. I envy those writers and their ability to mine reality for fiction’s sake. In my prior life, I was a history professor and a writer of history. Historians don’t make stuff up. I’m still a writer and for some of my work, truth still reigns—personal essays and biographical sketches, for example. But I have also started writing fiction. So for the first time in my writing career, I’m grappling with the notion of seeing a person as a character in my story, rather than their own.

More than once, this struggle has led me to doubt whether I can make that leap from nonfiction to fiction. Some days it feels too far. As an historian, I see the woman in the t-shirt or the black man in the gym and my first thought is to understand their context. How did they get here? What events and experiences led them to this place and this moment? What role does their race, their class, and their gender play in how their story unfolded? How do they represent themselves as individuals while also serving to illuminate something bigger? In short, I want to understand THEIR story. Which is why I became an historian. I wanted to tell other people’s stories.

But now? Now, I also want to tell my own stories. But, can I be an authentic fiction writer if I don’t see people as potential fuel for MY stories. To succeed, does my perspective have to change? Must I extract the person from their own experience to serve mine? Must I look at that old woman in the coffee shop and see her impeccable style and horror-story tastes only as a perfect character in my latest manuscript? If the answer is yes, then I need to find a kaleidoscope in my mind. Just a little twist and I’ll see things differently. I will be able to separate a bit of fact for the sake of fiction. I’ll observe that old woman in the coffee shop and take what I want for my story. I won’t need to understand her story. I’ll have my own. Just a little twist.

But I’m still waiting.

I write, but I also wait. Wait for the kaleidoscope to twist. Wait for my brain to quit doubting. Waiting to quit wanting to understand.

Other days, I write but I also worry. Am I failing? Failing to think like a fiction writer? Failing as a fiction writer? Failing myself by concocting a clever procrastination ruse? Failing as an historian by making stuff up? Am I failing?

Maybe someday, I’ll quit waiting and worrying and just write?!

 

 

 

Random Rants, tutto e niente

Spontaneous Combustion: Making Myself Visible    

Tina Stewart Brakebill

I submitted an essay for publication today. Not a big deal, right? I’m a writer. I’ve written all kinds of stuff over the years and some people have read some of my stuff. But still … when I clicked that deceptively benign submit button, a hot flash consumed my whole body. Not literally, of course. I wasn’t actually turned into a pile of ash, a victim of the mysterious “spontaneous combustion” phenomenon stamped into my fearful subconscious via the back-page comic book ads of my youth. (Funny, even back then, I preferred the weird back page stuff to the comic content. I guess I never was a Marvel gal.)  No. I still exist in corporeal form.  No ash. Just sweaty.

But for a minute or so, I felt as if I was on fire. It’s always this way. Whether it’s an essay for publication or a query to an editor, or a blog post for this site, my body always reminds me that my mind is overwhelmed by a sense of something that I can’t quite name. I’m a writer so I should be able to come up with the perfect word, but shame is the closest I can get.

So, if it is shame (or shame adjacent) then what is it that I’m ashamed of? The answer to that question makes little logical sense. The best I can come up with is that I feel both unworthy (so ashamed of thinking I am) and boastful (so ashamed of going public with my work). Simultaneous opposing shame spirals. Fun times!

I look back at my childhood and see its genesis. I loved to learn new stuff and read and write and get good grades. Not to brag but I was a bit precocious. But by about the fifth grade, I realized two things. First, smart girls weren’t the ones holding hands with a boy at recess. And second, I kinda wanted to be one of those girls holding hands. And it only got worse from there. In my mind, smart girls didn’t get picked for the pom-pom squad or get invited to the best slumber parties or get asked to be a member of a secret sorority. I was convinced that if I just wasn’t so outwardly brainy, my life would change. I’d be popular. Life would be perfect. But I also wasn’t willing to completely sacrifice my GPA. So, I tried to be smart without looking smart. Predictably, the results were mediocre. Socially and academically.

This attitude followed me to college with worse results. College drop-out worse.

Thankfully, age brought some wisdom and by my 30s, I started to reclaim and reembrace my inner geek. I returned to school and did well. But in the back of mind I worried. But now, my shame had shifted. Who was I to think that I had something worthy to offer? I had wasted my opportunity. I was in my 40s now. Invisible. Someone younger and more confident was always ready to step to the front of the line.

And I was letting them.

But age can be an awesome thing. As I moved further into my 40s, I grew impatient. Was I really invisible or was I hiding? I wrote a book about a woman who felt suffocated by the 19th century societal assumptions and laws limiting women. She felt unheard. Invisible. Giving voice to her struggle strengthened my own voice. Maybe I am invisible to some but I still have things to say. And they can listen, or not, but they can’t shut me up.

So, (long story short), that desire gave birth to another book, then a novel (still under construction), this blog, and those dreaded submission buttons.

Flaunt it! That’s what I tell myself.

BUT still … the naysayer, my inner monologue, lives. Telling me I’m a no talent hack before it reminds me that nobody likes a smart girl. No one’s listening so why bother? You’re invisible! I’m looking forward to the day that I defeat it. It would be a relief if the voices in my head cheered instead of jeered. Until then, I claim victory every time I decide to hit the SUBMIT button. Knowing the fire makes me visible, even as I feel it consume me.