Resistance

You’ve started your story or novel, and you have a few good pages that you’re pleased with. You have to go out of town (or do something else) for a few days, but you know where you’re going with your writing project, and you can’t wait until you get back to the story you’re working on. When you do return, you set up time to write and do everything you can to be prepared and in perfect shape to work. The morning/afternoon/evening to get started again happens and bang! You run smack into some invisible force that refuses to let you write those pages that you want and need to write.

This is resistance, and it’s the common companion of the writer. It’s the enemy, an internal saboteur, fifth column located inside your head. You may find yourself checking email or Facebook or Twitter, going online to do some research that suddenly seems imperative and falling down the Google rabbit hole. You might find yourself organizing your desk or your files or doing a load or three of laundry. You may find yourself cleaning out closets or suddenly running errands that you’ve been putting off for days or weeks, which have suddenly become imperative. Anything, anything at all, but write what you’ve set yourself to write.

As someone who writes for a living, I’ve a long, close acquaintanceship with my own resistance. Often, I believe I have it under control. Then, it shows up in some new form to devil me. Often, it can be quite persuasive. It is true that any project, especially a big one, will be easier to accomplish in an organized space. It’s true that some research needs to be done before you put words to paper. And often clearing the decks before you work can leave your mind readier to sink into your created world. It whispers perfectly plausible excuses to me that will end up keeping me from writing or from writing as much or as well as I want and intend to write.

One of the ways I’ve found to subdue my resistance is to always have another ongoing project. This takes advantage of one of resistance’s own techniques to throw it against itself as judo and other martial arts do.

This does not mean, “Start another book.” All those million new book ideas that that resistance sends trying to seduce you from your project should just be written down in an idea notebook or document and promptly forgotten until the book is over and it’s time to look for new concepts. No, I’m talking about another project that you’ve decided ahead of time you want to work on in addition to the main project rather than instead of the main project.

I offer myself the reward of working on this secondary story when I’ve met my goal on the main project. If it’s a very bad day and resistance is winning, I might allow myself to work on the other project first for a limited time to get my writing muscles moving. I set a timer, though, and when it rings, I must move onto the main book. Often, I may be doing something that’s more fun on the secondary project, such as research or exploratory planning and note making.  This makes it an ideal reward.

The nice thing about using a secondary project in this way is that, often by the time I’ve finished my main project, my secondary project is well underway and becomes my new main project while I set up a new secondary project to help me deflect the power resistance wields over me. Stephen King once said, “A change is as good as a rest,” and I think he was right. Also, this technique weakens the power of resistance by making it believe that I am giving way to it, at least somewhat. Yet, it keeps me productive.

What do you do when you encounter resistance? Have you found successful ways to defeat it?

 

Working Snow Days

Angela Carter at work--Could be my office!

We’ve had blizzards back-to-back here lately. The city shut down—no buses, no trash pickup, no mail, no school. My husband was home from work the whole time. We even lost power for a while. So it’s been about a week or so of snow days around here.

On snow days like these, no one goes to work, except the few people who staff emergency services and the city’s snowplows. Ninety-eight percent of the residents are not at work, but home on an unexpected vacation. Even though faced with over two feet of snow, most have a festive, holiday mood, reminiscent of the mood we all had as schoolchildren when schools called a snow day.

Except here and in other writers’ houses. A snow day is just another work day to us. We have deadlines and can’t afford to take off just because the snow has piled up so high the back door won’t open. Snow days are simply another distraction. 

It’s hard to always be working when other people are playing. Even when the work is the writing that we love, our vocation, our calling in life. Still, we feel a little aggrieved that we’re still tied to our desks when everyone else in the whole wide world is getting to play. At least, I certainly do.

I’m luckier than most writers in this situation. My husband is an editor, publisher, and writer himself. He does not expect me to amuse him when he’s home if I have work to do. He’s perfectly capable of amusing himself. But it’s hard to stay at work when he’s out there and I could be in the midst of a delightful conversation with him. He’s such a joy to talk to about a million different things. When we first started dating, we used to stay up until the wee hours just talking on the phone. After twenty-five years of it, talking with him is still one of my favorite things to do.

He went back to work today finally. The snow’s still in massive piles outside our house, and the car Is hidden under tons of it. The buses are running, however, and he rode one in to work.  I felt as if the house and I gave a deep sigh of relief and fell back into the normal. It’s not that I didn’t work while he was home for snow days. I did. Not as effectively or productively as usual. It felt like I was writing with part of my attention not fully there. But write I did—and I know I can make it as good as what I write on good days when I go back through revising. But it was writing under a kind of strain, and now that’s over.

What do snow days mean for you? Have you had your fill of them and, like me, are you oh-so-ready for spring?

Books Status Report

This is a pseudo-post because I haven't time for a real one.

I am unexpectedly cutting the manuscript of Every Last Secret at my editor's request. I should have known I was getting off too easily with those small changes. The way the length is figured has thrown me for a loop, however. Characters with spaces. Of course, my word processing program will figure that for me, along with word count. I've done this so many times that I can cut pages or words to order and estimate how well I've done fairly accurately. Not so with characters.

I do most of my revising on hard copy and then enter it in the computer--at least in fiction. When I cut words that way, I have a good idea as I'm going along in the hard copy where I'm standing. With characters, I'm flying blind. I've gone through the entire manuscript, cutting wherever possible. Now, I'm entering the changes. But I'm not sure I'll have cut enough and won't know until I've finished the whole process and have characters calculated.

It's a new process to learn. I suppose, several books on, I'll come to the place where I can cut in the hard copy and know pretty well how many characters I've managed to reduce. And of course, I've always found that cutting improves pretty much everything.

It would help if the city hadn't torn up my whole street and wasn't constantly shutting off my water while they work on whatever they work on, so I have to leave my house to write at coffee shops and libraries--any place where I'll have access to water during the day. I know I shouldn't complain since a few of my neighbors can't get their cars anywhere near their houses. At least, I'm not there.

Wishing you all happy writing! I'm entering cuts in the computer so I can eventually get back to the first draft of the new book. Later this week--an interview with poet, John Olivares Espinoza.

Today's been a good day for me. I wrote a new poem. And I can feel others rumbling around inside. I tend to write poetry in spurts--one poem will lead to more until for some reason I stop. Then I'll have a time that poetry's just not coming so that's when I revise and polish what I've written.

Other writing--novel, short story, nonfiction--is very different for me. When I'm in a non-poetry project, I set regular times and work on it daily. Sometimes it comes like poetry in spurts for which I'm grateful. Sometimes I sit and squeeze out words. Usually, it's something between the two. I warm up and manage to write what I planned and maybe a little extra. Poetry never seems to work that way for me.

The real work for me in poetry is all the revision I do. And of course, that's what really makes the poem. My friend, Jose Faus, is always reading something he's just written at a reading. I never read a poem until it's been through that long process of multiple revisions. Joe laughs at me about it. (Probably justifiably.)

But today it looks as if I'm moving back into a poetry period, always a happy time.

Auspicious Beginnings

I plan to use this blog to discuss writing, my own and that of others, but I also want to look at society and politics. I’m, of course, not a member of the art-for-art’s-sake-only-and-if-it-has-something-to-say-it’s-no-good party. As I said at the opening program of The Writers Place in 1992, we as writers have a responsibility to show our society both the what-is that’s going wrong and the what-could-be that would make things right. We are the torch-bearers who must point out the dangers and light the way into a better future. Even in poems about “little” everyday things.

Enough of that for now. I’m a happy woman as I begin this blog. We’ve just inaugurated a new president, and I believe that Barack Obama is the right person at the right time for the United States. More hope on the political front than I’ve had for many years. (Though, of course, that’s not true since I always hope. I’m the Queen of Hope. Hope is life = my mantra.) Also, I just had a call from the Missouri Arts Council and it looks as if the two major grants I just wrote and turned in for comments will probably be funded. That means that the Latino Writers Collective will have an even bigger, more ambitious reading series to follow this year’s. My book, Heart’s Migration, is beautifully designed and typeset and has a gorgeous cover. Many thanks to my great publisher, Luis J. Rodriguez (no relation) of Tia Chucha Press and his great designer, Jane Brunette. Most of all, Virgil Suarez has just sent a lovely blurb for the cover of the book.

Heart's Migration by Linda Rodriguez is a generous, gorgeous book of poetry. It's the kind of beautiful book that comes along every once in a long while, to keep the reader the perfect company. It's courageous, unflinching in its voice and tradition. You read a poem the likes of "My Daughter's Nightmares," and you feel the pangs of familial love and responsibility. Rather quickly at the start of this book you feel like you are invited in, taken into a landscape of vivid image and memorable detail, such is the vibrant tapestry of this book. This is a gifted, capable poet who takes pride in making a lasting human connection. I praise her voice and her passion!

Virgil Suarez, author of 90 Miles: New & Selected Poems, University of Pittsburg Press.

I’m happy that this will go on my book cover and, we hope, convince reviewers and potential buyers to give it a try. But most of all, I’m happy because I respect Virgil as a wonderful poet himself, so just knowing that he liked my work this much sends me flying. It’s much the way I felt after reading on Luis’ blog “the phenomenal poetry of Linda Rodriguez.” Because aside from his work as publisher, community developer and anti-gang activist, Luis is a great writer himself. However, since he’s publishing the book, he’s got a vested interest of sorts.

Anyway, much to be happy about in my universe. I have a loving husband and terrific kids, and I do believe that 2009 is going to be my year!

Queen of Hope, remember?