Category Archives: writing

Being Single & Writing a Book

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single taken empirePeople manage it every day: romance and writing.

I have no idea how.

I really don’t think that I’d have a completed book and a book deal if I were dating someone (or married, for that matter). I can barely juggle my relationships with friends and family, working a full-time job, and finding time to write all at once. I feel like if I suddenly had a sweet, hilarious, dorky, godly man (because that is the kind I’d want) in my life, my barely-there time management would utterly crumble.

Maybe not. What do I know?

The single years. Sometimes it feels like there have been too many; they are getting stacked upon each other so precariously that the tower is ready to topple. I think I will live if it does (though I’m not always sure). I am creating something beautiful in the next room over.

On a related note, have I ever told you to Date a Girl Who Writes*?

*if you’re sweet, hilarious, dorky, and godly

 

Image credit: Ben Raynal (top), Dmitry Ryzhkov (middle), Andrada Radu (bottom), stitched together and modified by me

Butt in Seat: Why Showing Up Works

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writing Rubin 110I’m a writer, and I know a lot of my blog readers are writers too, so you’ll have to excuse me while I redirect our focus to math for a moment.

1 + 1 = 2, and that’s not a lot. But if you + 1 over and over and over again, you end up with a lot. If you need to walk a mile, walking 1/8 of a mile 8 times will get you there. If you want to write a 60,000-word manuscript, 1,000 words a day for two months will do it. If you have 200 hours of revisions to complete and you work for 4 hours, you only have 196 left.

Showing up. It’s as simple– and as difficult– as that.

Theoretically we know that all those little moments of work will add up to a completed piece of art, but I think the bigger problem is that we artists are so often filled with such dreadful self-doubt that we sabotage our own equations.

What if the next four hours are a waste?

What if I write ten thousand words that are total crap and unusable?

What if I do all this research for nothing?

It can be paralyzing. I know there are times where I’d rather just avoid-avoid-avoid than do something that is going to be a waste.

But the truth of the matter is that the creative process needs those parts too. If you’re a writer, you’re going to write a bad first draft, you’re going to write words that will get cut– maybe even whole scenes, whole chapters, you’re going to go down rabbit holes that are dead ends. That’s just a part of the process.

Some writers know that it takes them a while to warm up, so they’ll make a practice of writing several throwaway pages before they roll up their sleeves for real work. When I get stuck, I make myself freewrite– write without thinking or trying or self-editing– and a lot of times, that’s when the gems spill out.

A lot of times, it’s hard for me to get started, especially when one writing session feels like I’m barely making a dent in things.  But session upon session upon session adds up.

Regarding OCD, I love the quote, “What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.” The same rings true for writing.

 

Image credit: Rubin 110 on Flickr

 

 

THINGS WILL NEVER BE OKAY AGAIN [& other lies I sometimes still believe]

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It’s been about five years now since I underwent the Exposure and Response Prevention therapy that changed my whole life, and those five years have been amazing: I have so much freedom, so much joy.

But 20 years in slavery to OCD does leave behind some residue, and I’m only now beginning to recognize those areas of my life where that’s true.

One thing that I’m sure most OCD sufferers will understand is the obsessive thought that things will never be okay again, which sometimes has a tail of until I do X on it, so often resulting in a compulsion. It’s actually kind of hard to explain this feeling to someone who doesn’t have OCD because it’s difficult to express how in that moment, you can sometimes see no way out. The fear is crippling, the anxiety so intense that we shatter beneath it and either cave in to a compulsion to temporarily alleviate the ugliness of that moment or else fall into a stupor of depression.

Things will always be like this.
I will never feel comfortable again.
I’m going to always think of X now when Y happens.

It’s such a black and white way to look at things– and so terribly short-sighted! If we can learn to push through the discomfort without performing a compulsion, we are legitimately shocked on the other side when that “truth” we so adamantly believed 24 hours ago is no longer true.

Even though OCD is no longer my master, there is fallout from years stacked upon years of thinking this way. 

Just the other week when I was writing in Duluth, I saw myself play through this entire scenario. I got frustrated with a scene I was trying to re-write, and I decided, I absolutely cannot do this; I will never be able to do this right. Then I succumbed to compulsive behavior (all without realizing it!) by emailing my editor and asking for more details. The next morning, I had an email from her: “Let’s talk this morning. We can find a solution. You should be comfortable and happy with what you write.”

And so we sent back and forth a few emails, and things were better.  You know, those same things that would never be better. Yeah, those ones.

All this panic that I have been experiencing is because I feel like control is being taken away from me. What does a person with OCD hate the most? Uncertainty.

So, while in some ways this anxiety that I’ve been experiencing is quite different from my OCD (in fact, I would go so far as to say that it is not OCD; it does feel different), I guess I’d have to classify it as a repercussion or consequence of years of obsessive-compulsive thinking and behavior.

Now that I have recognized that, I am hopeful that I will be more mindful of that thinking. I want to be able to say to myself that my reaction is programmed behavior from years of reacting thus, and that– just like so many things connected to OCD– it too is a lie.

For (lots!) more about OCD and ERP, go to jackieleasommers.com/OCD.

not ok but it's ok

Image credit: unknown

Writing Process Blog Tour

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I’ve been tagged for this blog hop by Sandra Waugh, whose debut book Lark Rising will be published by Random House this September. Lark Rising is a high fantasy novel, and you can read a description of it here. Check out Sandra’s website and follow her on Twitter!

lifeguard chair1. What am I working on?
Right now, I am revising my debut novel Truest, a contemporary YA novel about Westlin Beck, a pastor’s daughter in a small town whose relationship with the new boy is complicated by his twin sister’s mental disorder. I am dreaming about my next novel (yet untitled), another contemporary YA story about childhood enemies reunited six years later on the small island where they grew up. I’m terrifically excited about both these novels and desperately hope that my characters, who mean so much to me, will matter to the world.

2. How does my work differ from others in its genre?
Since there is so much amazing contemporary YA out there right now (Melina Marchetta and Jandy Nelson are two favorites), I actually hope that my writing is similar. I do tend to lean heavily into philosophy and ideas more than many others!

3. Why do I write what I do?
There is this quote by George R.R. Martin that I completely and utterly disagree with:

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?

I am sorry that Mr. Martin’s reality is so dreary. I believe that reality has its own magic. That is why I write contemporary realism– to show the beauty and charm of the real world.

4. How does my writing process work?
I start with characters. I create characters that fascinate me, characters who are complicated, ones I know that I can spend the next two years or so with and still not have them completely figured out, ones whose company I will still covet after all that time. After that, I toss them into a room together and see what happens.

I write my stories in layers, each draft focusing in on a specific area: first, characters/dialogue; next, plot; then, setting/description; and finally, language (refining it, adding in imagery, choosing better words for what I mean to say). This does not mean that I write four drafts and am done (that idea makes me smile), but after I have a solid draft, I have to seek critical feedback in order to improve.

And now, I tag Elyse and Mary! Your turn to answer these questions, my dears!

 

Image credit: unknown

A Thought

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paradoxSometimes I think that there is no way I can actually write a book as good as the book I’m imagining in my head. It’s like everything starts to die when I commit it to the page.

But then sometimes I think that my book is so much more than I could dream of, like sitting down to write is what made it come alive.

I don’t know whether to grieve or celebrate, so I guess I do both.

The writing life.

 

Image credit: Roxana Trifa

 

Thoughts from Places: Duluth

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Silver Sea #narnia

Silver Sea #narnia

Sigh. It’s Thursday evening, and I have to go home tomorrow. In some ways, I’m glad: I’ve gone a little loopy and have hit a wall. On the other hand, if I had all day tomorrow to write, I think I could still hammer out a lot of work.

I didn’t get as much done as I wanted, but I did get a lot accomplished. I feel simultaneously proud of my work and also terrified of just how much more effort needs to go into this manuscript before it’s ready to show the world.

Space. It’s so nice. I don’t only mean physical space, but also head and heart space– it’s just that physical space can sure lend to that, eh?

Being alone with a manuscript can make you go crazy. Back in December of 2012, I spent a week in a small town working on (believe it or not) this same novel, and here is what I had to say about it:

When it’s just you and your manuscript in a tiny house for a week, both truth and lies are going to ricochet like crazy off those old walls and you know some barbs are going to get stuck in you.  You’ll go from imagining your impending wild success to realizing that you’re a complete fraud.  The only reassurances you can find are electronic—Facebook, texts.  You drink them like water, but even then, you think what do these people know anyway?

This has been happening a lot lately, you think. This up and down, this rollercoaster.  You’ve tried to tell yourself it’s just the writing life, the way things are.  And to some extent, this really has to be true.

Here I am, 18 months later, and that book is being published, and I still lived on that rollercoaster all week. I wonder if– for me– writing will always be a rollercoaster of emotions. Yesterday I hit a low low where I couldn’t fathom how Truest would matter to anyone. Yet, by that evening, I was re-writing a scene that I could not stop laughing over. I was honestly losing it laughing in my condo over things my characters did and said.

Tonight I feel stress creeping back in as I face returning to civilization tomorrow. (Honestly, it’s been so nice this week: no make-up, pajamas all day, I don’t even leave my condo.) I feel time biting back down on me; I feel the pressure of my contract all over again. I wish I could stay another week. I wish I could somehow have more space.

Interesting thing about this resort where I’m staying: I started writing my second draft of Truest at this place, two whole years ago. And now (please, Lord) I am writing my second-to-last draft (I hope I hope I hope). I have learned about a million things about fiction and the writing life and young adult literature and about the industry since then, and my book– my gosh, my book!— has grown and changed so tremendously that it’s nearly unrecognizable (in a good way!). But I am still the insecure writer who is trying to fake it till she makes it.

Some people would say I have made it. It doesn’t feel that way to me.

Time for more revisions. I really hope you’ll love my book.

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Living Inside a Book: or, Why I’m Not Making Dinner Plans with You

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As an introverted writer, I admit that I can sometimes become a bit of a hermit.  This is especially true when I’m in the grip of a writing project.  Just ask my friends: I all but drop off the face of the earth.

The other week I read a post by Donald Miller called “The Truth You Don’t Want to Know About Writing a Book,” in which he put to words what I’ve so ineloquently been trying to explain to people for a couple years now.

Don writes:

You don’t come in and out of a book the way you can any other project. You’ve got to live inside a book, set up camp in the book, sleep inside it, go for walks inside it and you can’t under any circumstances come up for air otherwise you’ll have to go through the reentry process again.

crumplesThat is exactly how I feel.

I need a running start to find my writing rhythm.  Think of it like a plane’s runway, except that, with writing, it might take me a couple hours just to get to the part where I’m moving fast enough to fly.

It helps when I’m in a routine.  I find that if I’ve been writing every day for several weeks, it’s a lot easier for me to find my rhythm.  If I haven’t been writing consistently, finding the rhythm can sometimes take me a week.

If I spend two hours tapping into the magic, and then I have to pause for a coffee date with a friend, well, those two hours were basically a waste.  I’m going to have start at the end of the runway again after coffee.

This is why I’ve been known to take “vacations” by myself– to hole myself up in a house or a cabin or above someone’s garage and just write with no interruptions.  Is it lonely?  YES.  Those weeks alone are crazy-makers.  But they’re so, so good because I can just speed up once and fly for a week.

This blog post is dedicated to my friends and family who– while they may not understand my writing life– deeply respect it.  They allow me to slip into my solitary-mode, and they don’t make me feel guilty about it.  (Do you know what an incredible gift that is?  Thank you, thank you, friends.)  And they are always eager to get something on the calendar once I’m ready.

This writing life.  I tell ya.  It’s so different than I ever thought– it’s stranger and lonelier and lovelier than I could have dreamed.

 

Image credit: not found.

Fairy Tales & Tears

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I.

Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Jackie Lea who loved to tell and write stories.  She made a short list of her life’s goals, and one of the items on the list was to publish a book.

Jackie Lea worked tirelessly toward this goal: she wrote all through high school and college.  She wrote after college too, and she created a writing group, and she spent her precious money on workshops and conferences and readings to help her become a better writer.

She was very, very tired.  But still very determined.

“If I can just get a book deal, I’ll have met my goal, and then just think how happy I’ll be!  I’ll be a professional.  I’ll be thrilled.  I’ll be validated,” she told herself.

Then one lovely November day, she got incredible news: an editor loved her story and was going to publish her!  Jackie Lea had worked hard, and all her dreams had finally come true.

II.

fairy tale4Except that the book deal added so much stress to Jackie Lea’s life that she felt overwhelmed and panicked, jealous of other writers, nervous about her revisions, terrified to give up control, and generally quite fearful.

And she would cry about it.

And that felt wrong too, because who cries in a fairy tale when her dream is coming true?

 

Image credit: Gabriela Camerotti