Dreaming

At some point I know that when I close my eyes at night I'll stop seeing walkways of San Francisco.

At some point I stopped dreaming of Missouri when I came here.

Just waiting.

The Reason I (Am) Here

(Yes, this lovely little ditty is showing up at 5 am.  I wake up at weird hours and use the time to write.  The fun side of being a creative.)

Present and future tense.  I've snatched at it lately, like music.  I am here.  I have a reason to be here.  When I get married.  It's shadings like this that make a girl hopeful.

I'm working on my novel more and more right now; with the holidays the job search and inquiries can pretty much be wrapped up in 90 minutes a day and then I sit down and work on being productive, in any sense possible.  I blog about customer service finds and frustrations.  I read.  I write on what I read.  And then I work on the novel.

My character in the novel is a woman with a lot of similarities to me.  She's a baseball fan.  She works in an industrial setting.  She suffers a workplace injury.  She spends about 60 percent of her free time alone, and, in the off-season, 100 percent of her free time alone.  (To be fair, she has differences from me as well.  She doesn't think women should play professional baseball.  She's thin.  She's of Irish descent.  She has no siblings.  She's not a writer and she doesn't read fiction.)

The one aspect of her that is easiest to write is her solitude.  My protagonist is the definition of "If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?"  For some odd reason, I always think of Isak Dinesen's accounts of Africa when I think of that phrase..."will Africa remember me?"  Was I really here?  At several points in the novel the protagonist does the incredible--she has batting practice with the San Francisco Giants before each of their home games, for FOUR YEARS.  As they say on the social networks these days, "Pictures or it didn't really happen."  But she agreed not to take pictures.  She agreed not to tell anyone.  And her love for the men she plays with is strong enough that when another character asks, "How am I supposed to believe that?  Why would I believe that?" her answer is, "Then don't."  Alone, sitting on everyone else's more credible and documented side of the world, more people have doubted her, and contributed to her self-doubt, than these 25 men in a batting practice that she can't prove.  They not only believe her life but they want to be part of it.  Her loyalties lie with those who think she exists, and who acknowledge her existence.

I often wonder if I exist, living as solitary as I do.  Social networking responses to my work often shock me not for their content but for their appearance.  I was speaking with a friend yesterday about this, and he was patient and kind enough to explain why it was so rare to connect with others on social networks, and what other factors are involved when the tree falls.  He didn't lecture, he didn't instruct, he just posed considerations.  There's a small chance I'm heard.  There's a minute or no chance that I'm acknowledged, and I'm looking in the wrong place for that acknowledgment.  It was good to have that kind of weighing in, and then go to writing group afterword, where others were grateful that I had hosted the group and made them comfortable.  I could see my contribution to the world reflected back for an afternoon.  There IS a reason that I AM here.

Present tense.

I hear leaves rustling in the forest.  :)

Encrypted

I've been carrying a Moleskine journal with me more and more lately, a soft companion with no rules.  I clip a gel-writing pen to the cover, usually with some outlandishly-colored blood in its veins, and I sit in bars, coffee shops, bookstores (not for the faint of heart, that; staff may think you are writing in a book of theirs) and park benches, spilling the beans.  I sometimes get out my BlackBerry and take pictures of the evidence, and put it on Foursquare for geographic reference or on Facebook with a fat cookie or cake piece to get comments...and I do get comments.  For the sweets.

Rarely do I get compliments on Facebook for my writing.  I'm starting to wonder if it's because I write in cursive, and if the friends who follow me on Facebook can read something that isn't a downloadable font.

I'm a minority in the pictures of this subject.  I'm also a minority in my writing groups.  Often in a group of three to fifteen people I am the only one going analog.  I adore analog.  I'm truly myself with analog, free to stumble, run, swim or fly over the pages.

Sometimes, though, the pages represent time wasted eternal to an outsider.  "You go to so many writing group meetings," say non-writing friends, and even some fellow members.  "Is your bedroom overflowing with filled journals?"  No, but more because I am a slow writer, a careful writer, even in private.  I got my very deliberate cursive from a strict teacher in the sixth grade, who told me my handwriting was awful (it was legible), and that if I made a concentrated effort to improve it, then I would be accepted into her special class for something called Calligraphy, where I could dip a pen in ink and create fancy letters like the ancients.  Few kids bit at this bribe, but I was lonely enough then to bite at anything...sort of like I am lonely enough now to bite at any social networking site or technology just to find companionship.  With the calligraphy class I learned to change my handwriting (my fifth-grade handwriting and my seventh-grade handwriting look like two different people--I'm lucky I didn't have to sign things at that age), and grip the pen with such worry that two things happen when I write:

• You can't take my pen from me--the hand will come along for the ride;
• I cramp up about a page in and can no longer feel my middle finger at the tip.

I have been told to loosen up by other teachers, physiological medical professionals, even psychiatrists.  I've tried, but then the distinctive art is lost.  I would rather be in pain and combative when it comes to my writing than relax and lose the picture.

Occasionally, someone will shock me and be on my side.  I'm used to my handwriting, so the shock comes from seeing the beauty again from the outside.  There's a cafe in North Beach in San Francisco that has fallen in love, collectively, with my pages--I have been known to get free drinks with my letters.  I've written for charity without a laptop, contributing by the page, for the penmanship.  And occasionally someone in the writing group will see me prepare for the session and their jaw will drop on the table.  "That paper is unlined," they'll say, and point, as though I just hurled a submarine pitch and the ump called it fair.  "How come you can do that and the paper is UNLINED?"  Because I'm a freak, I think, but just smile to the inquisitor.  My control issues work FOR me in this department.

This afternoon I was skimming my news feed through Twitter and found this, tucked in amongst the baseball stats, Kindle Fire announcements, and publication pointers.  My favorite journal manufacturer is sponsoring a project to collect something that may be a lost art in just a few generations, and that art is HANDWRITING?  You mean at some point someone is going to need a comparable Rosetta Stone to decipher me?  You mean that I, the least hip person and probably not one of the smartest people on the face of the planet, is using something akin to Navajo spy messages or passing down an oral tradition in recipe?  

Or code?

And all of the apathy toward my life from outsiders, all of the things I'm not smart enough to see and all of the things I have to keep up with to be published and "liked," were washed away.  I have a gift.  I have the writing equivalent of the knuckleball, long lost to pitchers because they can't maintain control of it.  I can maintain control of it, in the knot between my fingernail and my hand.  I have the ball at the seams, and I send the curves flying, so slowly that the page thinks it can be hit out of the park, still swinging at something lost in the tomorrows.  Suddenly, I feel relevant, and...surprisingly precious to an unsuspecting world.

Write on...a lost art.

Social Writing

Probably the most difficult thing that I've had to get used to with the writing groups is maintaining a balance of social interaction with the craft. I've been with this group for four years and in nearly every session there are participants who show up late, show up with strange requirements, or show up thinking that we are going to talk through the entire session. The group is a simple one--write together on a project of your making for an hour. Still, writers come in expecting the social element, or critique afterward--what Natalie Goldberg wrote as the writer's affirmation. You want someone to pat you on the back for doing this for an hour. You want others to praise you just for showing up. But that's not going to happen. You need to come here to write with others, period. That's why the name of the group is "Shut Up & Write."

We do talk a little before and little after, which I think lends to the process for the people who return again and again. But for those who demand attention in that golden hour--I have to learn patience, every night. Yet, that patience is golden when they produce it in me. I feel as though I have been given my own affirmation.

How to Deal With Interruption

Since yesterday my sinus issue has become a full-blown cold, complete with a streaming nose and fuzzy thinking.

Perfect for a writer hoping for a progress beyond interruption.

I'm giving myself somewhat of a break by lightening my load to carry in my handbag. For two to three nights a week (and one day on weekends when I attended the writing marathons) I would carry two bags or stuff my regular handbag with so much stuff that I would hurt myself. That will end starting today. I'm packing a pocket Moleskine, free-writing instead of expecting great strides (I'm shooting for the big strides at home), and for reading I'm accessing the Kindle app on my phone. When meeting other writers is hard work, then writing socially has to be re-thought and the expectations reset.

I met with my brother yesterday and he asked if I was booked the rest of the week. Cancel my writing groups? This is important to me, so I didn't press it. I know they are free meetings, but they give me access to other writers, instead of imprisoning me with other coworkers.

Passion friends vs. friends via imprisonment.

I'm going to keep working toward that, regardless of the physical struggles.

Barriers

I'm overcoming two challenges today:

• The writing group I'm leading tonight at 6:30 pm is held about three blocks from the Mission office of the SFPD. If yesterday's protests in that area repeat, I may have a story tomorrow of "you should see the other guy." Or maybe I won't have a story tomorrow. Depends on whether I get bailed out or shot. (Seriously, this is the part of San Francisco I loathe and despise.)
• I have to write a sex scene.

Strangely, after spending three years working in Oakland, the thing I'm most scared of on that list is writing the sex scene.

Write on.

Back to Basics

The last two days of contemplation on my writing have been full-circle lessons in why I write. The more that I attend these writing groups, the more that I drift into a sense of making the experience better, and, at the end of the day, sometimes you have to chop off an arm to save yourself from an injured hand.

So this week I'm proud to say that I only have two writing group meetings with my current writing group, and I have no expectations with the new one that I'm trying. We won't be writing at the new one, either. How weird for me after all this time.

As to the current writing group, I'm going to have to keep a copy of Natalie Goldberg with me, and let a lot of stuff go. The leadership staff is going to make my life miserable with that group from now on, and I have to find some way to get over that and just write--I will keep myself available to new writers and offer support, but as to the popularity contest...it's back to being like a group of managers. Trick is now to disregard that and move on with bigger things.

Like me, writing.

Write on.

Multiples, Briefly

Another short post this morning...as soon as I can sneak breakfast in after my roommate leaves, I have miles to go and promises to keep. Today is a TWO writing group day--I am trying out a new one in the Mission, and I'm hosting my first solo event in the Richmond tonight. This means I get to eat out in some pretty disparate locales today and that I'm going to be out among the people for a majority of my day, instead of hiding in the apartment until I make an appearance. I've attacked my morning pages, my career change blog, and now this...after this venture I'm checking e-mail and fueling up and hitting the road.

I'm pretty much in love.

Yesterday was a damn hard day. I had slept about three and a half, maybe four hours the night before because I was so incredibly revved up by the opportunity to lead two (three if you count my subbing gig on Wednesdays) writing groups that I couldn't stay prone. I was exhausted by the time I got to writing group last night, and, to add insult to injury, the backroom that we normally utilize for the meeting was crammed full of people and I couldn't find a book that should have been easily found in green San Francisco. I didn't want to do group last night. Where we gonna put 'em? I had forgotten the cardinal rule of cafes in San Francisco: despite the presence of internet, people do turn over. By some strange and yet predictable miracle, the place cleared out and everyone showed up (save, of course, for the guy who has me host instead of him). And I felt like I could fly.

It NEVER fails. I could walk in with a flesh wound and the process of attending group would make the whole world Willy Wonka-ed again.

Write on.

Wired

I slept about four hours last night. All because of my writing group and how excited I am about the opportunity.

So this will be brief, since you get to click on a link and read all about it there. Today is also Lost Crates day for me, sort of like Boxing Day after Christmas, and then I have group tonight.

Life as a writer, for the moment, ain't all bad.

Write on.

Morning Pages

Each morning, when I first wake up and before I stuff my face for breakfast, I write three pages longhand, morning pages. The inspiration for it came from a book that a friend gave me last November by Julia Cameron concerning a writer's "diet," but I've read "The Artist's Way" when I first started reading Natalie Goldberg and other writing gurus, so I was already familiar with the concept. (The best explanation that I've found of morning pages can be found here.)

Sometimes, for stretches of days, I feel that the pages are useless. This past week, on vacation, I sort of resented them--they got me up early so that I could have the chance to finish them before family woke up and required my attention. And this morning, my first day back from vacation, I spent longer than usual with them because I wanted to get down to the "real" writing, like my blogs and short stories. Each sentence was torture. I thought, "Do I really need this?"

The thing is, if I don't do these pages, it's an emotional difference, like missing life-sustaining prescription medication in the morning. The first Saturday I was on vacation my brother was up before I could get to pages, so I put them off until the next day. Yesterday I didn't get to them until three o'clock in the afternoon. Both times I got angry--I felt like I had been denied something that was either strongly a part of me or necessary to my psychological well-being.

What is happening with the morning pages when I drag with them is I am self-censoring. I just have to spill them, no matter how crappy they sound or read. And I keep forgetting that. I write so much for the world to read now that I forget to save a little for me.

So we'll try again. Just one more day. :)

Write on.

From the Department of "Well, That Was Dumb"

I'm having one of those mornings where I got off to a weird start. I bought yet another laptop bag yesterday, and in the transfer of writing supplies to take with me to the library I forgot my pouch of back-up pens. I've Tweeted the fact, Facebooked the fact...I'm obsessed. This was supposed to be a writing session.

And it was. Just an on-line one, is all. I'm still working on adaptability issues, obviously. City writer, country writer. :) (Thanks, Robin.)

And for those of you following my bag count...I picked up this little gem at the outlet mall, Kenneth Cole, $17, AND it matches my current handbag. Oh, I'm such a girl.

I'm at the Carlsbad City Library this morning, the Georgina Cole branch, while Serena volunteers at the Senior Center. Yes, I could have volunteered with her. Yes, I was selfish about my writing and chose that instead this week. I'm used to the San Francisco Public Library, which isn't much different from this library at the satellite branches. The two biggest differences are:

• The librarians here are so friendly they greet you coming in, and they invite you to stay and read a while. "It's hot out there; you better stay put," was my instruction on Wednesday. I readily complied and read for two hours that day. (Had plenty of ink and I read the whole time--oh, for God's sake, let it GO already, Jo...) The San Francisco librarians are pleasant, but you have to get in front of them and make yourself known. I suspect that has to do with the second difference, below...
• About 30% of the patrons at the SF Public Library are homeless people, camping in the temperature control with free knowledge. I don't begrudge them that, although it lends an unmistakable aroma to a library in San Francisco that for the most part does an excellent job of keeping me from curling up with a book there. In this library there is just one homeless person, and none that I could find at the main branch over on Dove Lane. The homeless woman here seems disturbed but well-behaved--I imagine she doesn't want to be thrown out in this heat.

I love the Main Branch of the SF Public Library for it's grandeur, but I must say that I love these little libraries for their humanity. Today I had to journey upstairs for a vacant writing table, but Wednesday I got a table right by checkout, and got to talk to children. One little girl who I swear came up to my knee insisted on showing me the correct way to self-checkout (Tina Fey, Jr.), and another little girl passed my table and demanded that she wish me goodbye and that I have a good day. This friendliness seems consistent with much of Carlsbad--Mike and Serena's neighbors invite me over to their units and show me pets and renovations with relish, offer up sunburn cure-alls, and ask if I'm looking for a vacancy down here. They even nod in agreement about my love of San Francisco--"Oh, I understand, hon. Just saying you have a home here if you want it." At the cafe yesterday two people stopped to ask me about the library book I was reading, and if I was reading it for work. STRANGERS. It's like Mayberry meets Surf City.

Well that's enough writing for now...I'm going to finish that book I started on Wednesday and wait to see what the tide will bring.

Write on. :)

Follow Through

My most difficult challenge these days is trying to not to push other writers into discipline.

This is a particular challenge with the Meetup "Shut Up & Write!" meetings. I'm to the point where I am attending nearly every meeting, and in each one, whether I try to hide it or try to advertise it, it comes out that I'm a veteran of these meetings. Someone (or more than one person) ends up talking to me and asking me about my writing habits, about how to meet people in San Francisco, or confessing to me how they just can't get anything written.

I can relate. I have been there. I sometimes go there.

But at the end of the day, if you don't love to write as much (or more) as life itself, then bear in mind that it won't be good. It may take off. You may become famous. I'm reading a novel right now by someone who wanted to be famous. That's how the book reads, anyway. It's action-packed. It's all exotic.

It's a string of vomiting and sex linked by a train ride. I'm debating whether to stop reading it, because I'm hoping the second half of the novel will redeem the first half. I'm running a risk, though. It could just be more of the same.

That writer got lucky. I could love writing and write every day for all of time and not get published. The thing is, in the end, if that stops me.

It doesn't. So when they ask me for advice, I just say what my mother said, "Be patient." That's my stock answer. At the end of the day they either take it and write for the whole hour or the whole day (in the case of marathons), or they have better things to do or less want to write, and I see that come out, too.

My task is to let it go and not lecture them. Not everyone is cut out to be a writer. Even some of those who are published.

Write on.

Pablo (Not Sandoval)

Another evening out tonight...got in an excellent writing day, and then went and saw the Espana at Twilight exhibit at the de Young to avoid the crowds at Picasso. I love the narrative line in the exhibits at deYoung and the SF MoMA, and they always teach me something about the artist. Yes, duh, I know that's the point, but I'm getting the hang of this new constant cultural thing, so have patience.

Tomorrow brother is in town so I'm trying to cram in all of my writing to drop in the morning--so this is going to look a little strange in the morning when I drop stuff into the internet like Santa Claus.

Maybe a pauper Santa Claus. :)

There will be writing, though--am packing my notebook for freewriting and the comp notebooks for the rough draft of the short story.

Write on.

Jane

Another close encounter with literature last night...got to listen to and meet Jane Smiley. Of her and Mary Roach, I would rather talk with Mary...Jane was a bit too college PhD for me. It was a treat to hear her though. I was most struck by her comment that she loves what she is working on now best, because it keeps her optimistic.

I was amazed that there was nearly no one there. This woman won a Pulitzer, and I didn't have anyone sitting on either side of me. Was Smiley amazed by this? She didn't reveal it if she was. I don't know why I keep thinking of writers as rock stars, when no one else my age seems to. Sad fact: at all of these events, I'm the youngest person in the room, by sometimes up to twenty years younger. What will happen to the culture in the years to come? I feel old and yet like a kid when I go to these things. I'm caught between two ages--go to an event that costs hundreds of dollars like an Adele concert or Stephen Colbert's political march in Washington DC, or go to see the authors who write the words I relate to? I wish I could be cool, but I can't.

In a minor shift, however, there is a cartoonist with the Bay Citizen who always seems to end up at these events with me, although I never meet him. He looks to be my age in his pictures, or maybe even younger. Suddenly, despite being surrounded by retirees, I feel youth in my choices, and it keeps me going back.

Write on.

Gertie

I had a very full day yesterday--beating the dead horse that is San Francisco's fascination of Gertrude Stein downtown. I knew very little about her before I left yesterday morning, and, by the end of the day, I had drank the Kool-Aid and enjoyed the taste.

I never enjoyed Stein's writing, and still don't, honestly. She plays with words to the point where they are supposed to be profound, and I just find them, um, spent. But her life was fascinating. She was a tomboy, and full of herself, and yet kind, and...well, I cannot write well about the experience yet, so I'll lay off for now. A blog on it, somewhere (or maybe more than one), is sure to come.

I've also been fighting with how much to share on-line via networking...I have no problem with Twitter, but Facebook seems like a waste of time. Still mulling it over though...more on that to come.

Write on.

Turned To Stone, Or, Closed Minds

I'm sitting here listening to Ingrid Michaelson's music, which isn't diva force but is spider-web strong. It's been another good day, but not the most productive of writing days. I'm not quite sure what a productive writing day would be for me--finishing a novel in a single day? Writing the entire New York Times Book Review section? I have a tendency of grading my accomplishments harshly. Particularly since most of the writing today was behind the scenes: an article on a library event tonight and a blog post on the blog that is designed to back up my resume with English instead of that resume-ese that I hate writing in. I'm not sure if any employers read it, but after reading a post today from my friend Robin I don't really have an excuse not to look it up.

Speaking of reading, or giving writers a chance...

A few weeks back I took up the challenge from a columnist who backed Naipaul despite his diminishments of women writers and decided to give him another chance as a reader. In her article (which I cannot find now, Lord love me) she stated that we shouldn't discount good writers just because of their beliefs. I'm in full agreement. Hemingway and Amis were/are as much of masochists as Naipaul, and yet I would gladly read them. Naipaul, as another commenter on another blog put it, is just "tedious." Tedious is kind. I found the best way to get to sleep was to read Naipaul, and that was with my reading glasses on. I had tried "A Bend In the River" when Naipaul first won the Nobel, and the cure for insomnia happened then, and this time it was "A House For Mr. Biswas," another yawner. I just couldn't justify any more than 87 pages of such behavior.

I'm sure there are vast and great societies of people out there who find Naipaul worth putting up with despite his views. Maybe someday I'll reach their intellect. But for now I find myself relishing the Pulitzer Prize of Jennifer Egan (um, woman writer who loves language and format), Jane Austen (a comedy-of-manners writer like Naipaul who knows how to love language, and, um, a woman), and "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand" by Helen Simonson (another comedy of manners by a woman who can make south Asian and Middle Eastern characters look more intricate and regal than the British).

Life is too short, I say, for V.S. Naipaul.

Going to take a walk, grab a cup of coffee, and get in some fiction rough drafting before my library event tonight.

Write on.

Still Learnin'

Went to the deYoung this morning to see Picasso and was snubbed due to lack of planning (that'll learn ya, Jo), so I came back home and changed clothes (into something cooler), hydrated, had lunch (lots of fruits and veggies and I'm hiking all over creation already--where's the weight loss? Where's the love?), and then decided to catch up on some social networking. The Shut Up and Write facilitator for Wednesday nights finally posted the meeting, and then promptly e-mailed me to ask if I'd host it. Ah, flakiness. But that character trait is his to own, as I said to myself, but I'm just there to show up, shut up, and write.

Natalie Goldberg comes to mind yet again: "Make a positive effort for the good."

I had to remember that last night too, when I thought I was the only one attending the Tuesday Shut Up and Write and someone else showed up at about 15 minutes prior to start. Just make a positive effort for the good. I have to look at this like Zen--if no one shows up, stay, write.

Sooner or later I will be so grounded in this that it won't be a saga. In the meantime, I'm just stunned that no one else is as passionate about this as I am.

Write on.

An-tici-pa-tion...

It's a gloomy morning here in the Inner Sunset district of San Francisco, although God knows the sun is trying to burn through the fog. I am moving around the apartment, doing "knucklehead" stuff, as they would call certain tasks on "West Wing" that fell below the radar of POTUS. I got cleaned up, had my healthy breakfast, did one load of dishes (there were two loads in the sink, so I have more knucklehead stuff for this afternoon), paid bills, filed papers, and in a few minutes will get to the job search. I am doing knucklehead stuff for a couple of reasons: I do this garbage every Monday; and I am waiting for UPS to deliver a package. Last month I signed up for something called Lost Crates, where, once a month, the recipient gets a sampling of the latest and greatest in art and/or writing supplies, without knowing what they'll be. It's probably the last thing I can afford, but I was intrigued, just to see what it would be, to have the anticipation of looking forward to something akin to a care package, as though I was still young enough and still learning enough to get those.

It's been a couple of months like that, though...looking forward to Giants games, to the Treme tour concert, to the Woody Allen movie, all at discounts, and all unexpected. This package will be the last big event for a while, and then I'll have to create events of my own--maybe a new job in the traditional sense, maybe a story sold.

*****

For a long time I thought of Meetups as something formal, only operated by the truly sane and secure in themselves. The founder and original organizer of the Meetup series that I attend, "Shut Up and Write!" set the bar high. He's the perfect vision of manager/facilitator/mentor/motivator; when one of the group's members says, "Hey, why don't we have one in Berkeley?" his response is, "Yes, why don't YOU look into that?" This empowerment has created a spreading of the group throughout the Bay Area and continued it to New York City (with two groups there) and a new possibility now in Toronto. It's a great way to spread the word and the concept of the group geographically.

It's creating a bit of skirmish back here in the home turf, though.

Different organizers take different accountability for their groups, to be sure. The founder wants to make sure that every Shut Up and Write session is consistent, so that if you like Shut Up and Write you'll tell your friends, and either they'll come with you or go to a Shut Up and Write in their neighborhood. Keep in mind that the group has reached that level--this past week there were meetings in Berkeley, SoMA, the Mission, the Inner Richmond, and the Castro/Duboce Park area. I love that layout--I can finally go to Meetups close to me (for me, a Meetup that's close is one bus-line away from me), and I'm sure others find the locations that aren't close to me close to their homes or workplaces. It's a great idea. And so what if meetings fall on the same day as other meetings? It's still a great way to choose.

It's a great selection for everyone but one of the organizers, that is. Last week two of the organizers scheduled for the same time slot--one a long-established meeting in the Mission, one a first-time meeting in the Inner Richmond. Delightfully, the Inner Richmond is not only closer but in a library, so that I have a shorter commute AND I don't have to buy coffee and snacks to write. Surprisingly, the first-time meeting had more people sign up and actually show up than the long-established meeting, and I know from talking to that facilitator before that he was probably livid. He is a facilitator that does contract work, and he's in the middle of a project right now and doesn't come to his own meeting very often, but he hates it when other groups try to copy-cat or try to borrow the Shut Up and Write concept. I've always bit my tongue to keep from reminding him that we borrowed the concept from Natalie Goldberg.

I see this week, on Monday, that neither Wednesday group has scheduled. I can almost bet what has happened. Either neither one of the facilitators are scheduling, waiting to see if the other one will, or, they are both duking it out with the founder to see if this is ethical. Either way it seems a bit erratic--there's no Wednesday night meeting yet, and, if you want to grow your group, shouldn't you get a calendar up as soon as possible so that potential group members would want to make plans? Don't you at least want to LOOK stable?

All I could think of was Natalie Goldberg's final pages of "Long Quiet Highway," where she sat for peace in downtown Santa Fe every weekday from noon to twelve-thirty. She had been practicing Zen for years, and this wasn't a protest, it wasn't "partisan," it was just her way of dealing with the first Gulf War. I look at it this way--if I could write regardless, like Nat, then I'm grounded, I'm stable, and maybe others will join me. I'm thinking that they will be more likely to join me if I show up myself, but if not, well, that's their practice. Maybe it's time to establish a practice of my own, a Shut Up and Write of my own, to show up to regardless.

And it would be something to look forward to, without any doubt at all.

Friday

I did in fact get my short story work in today and my morning pages, but all of my other writing seems to have gone out the window. Everything else that I needed to do took twice as long to do, in some sort of Vulcan Mind Warp:

• Woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn't sleep. Finished the Anthony Bourdain memoir, reviewed it, and loaded the Naipaul book on GoodReads.
• Slept from 4:30-7, then fell back to sleep.
• Woke up at 9. Criminently. Wrote morning pages, had breakfast, did dishes, walked up the hill for exercise and energy, bought stuff for lunch.
• 11:15, put laundry in. Worked on short story. Switched to dryer at 11:50. Worked on short story.
• Made a lunch that will be leftovers through Monday.
• Read two articles in The New Yorker.
• Walked, got coffee. And here I am at 4.

And I have evening concert plans. So the day is pretty much shot.

But, dammit, I got to that short story now, didn't I?

Clutter Patrol

Heh, heh...just organized all of my favorites on Safari, so now I get to do mind melt every time I try to find stuff for a little while...

Have had a really good couple of days of writing, and so was absent from here yesterday. I'd like to think of this as a running on-line journal, so when I miss a day I start to get that feeling like I mis-buttoned my shirt or something. But most of the day happenings for yesterday and today went into a blog post on Sea Level that I'll point out on Facebook tomorrow. I am trying to get in the habit of only going into Facebook on Fridays, with marginal success. It's a work in progress and a goal I'm not going to hit overnight, but I'll still try for it. The plan is to only hit up Facebook on Friday, and on Friday on Twitter point my Twitter followers to Facebook for news. Changes things up and maybe some of the readers will follow back and forth. We'll see.

Twitter = Reader's Digest Condensed Book.

Facebook = Reader's Digest Condensed Book with the paper illustrated book jacket still on

Debating an event tomorrow night...the Bookswap thing at Booksmith. The weather is supposed to be crappy, I want to give readers a chance to go, I've never been to Booksmith (and yet I write about 'em--just call me Stephen Crane, war hero, and get it overwith), and I don't have a book to swap because I give all of them away as I read them, damn it. On the other hand I just added "Writing Down the Bones" to my Kindle and have a pocket copy that I could trade. That book has probably been the greatest writing teacher I have ever had. I was going to give the pocket copy to a friend of mine, but only because her therapist has her journal-writing, and not because she is normally a writer. Probably not the best reason if I don't want this copy to get dusty. We'll see. I'll head over there now, see if there are tickets, and check out the store. (Removes a couple of the cons on the list, I guess.)

You ever hit one of those strides where you don't care if anyone's reading--you're just glad to be writing?

Hells, yeah. I'm there.