The Bitter Quill

Weariness seems to be common among the Bitter Quill contributors. Perhaps it’s related to the desire for winter hibernation. Perhaps it’s the demands of our day jobs. Or perhaps it’s Bitter Quill’s demanding editor—although I hear he’s pretty tired too.

Whatever it is, the result is a feeling of exhaustion that has managed to put me behind on several deadlines. Fortunately, I have kind editors (who also happen to live too far to easily do me physical harm). Knowing that my editors are willing to allow me some leeway, I have decided to take as much of a vacation as I can.

Like Star, I’ve decided to make some time for reading. I’ve even managed to finish one of those books I was stuck in: James Herriot’s Every Living Thing. Of course, I still have to chip away at my projects, but perhaps I’ll be able to do so with a renewed sense of energy.

Today I’m the world’s grumpiest ingrate. I say to the world, “I want to write!” And the world says, “By all means, Ms. Foster, then write.” To which I reply, “But world, I also want to have a roof over my head and a place to sleep and food to eat.” And the world says, “I see your point. However, if you seek for them, you will find people who will pay for what you have written.” And so they do. And so often I count myself fortunate that every day I am afforded the opportunity to take my dreams, my craft, and what I (perhaps overdramtically) like to think of as my vocation, and put it to practical use. Between 9-5 I write in the business world. Years ago it was technical documentation and evaluations, these days it’s more official missives and marketing materials; bland work, largely uninspiring, but it does pay the bills. Then, in my morning and evening hours I get to write on things about which I am passionate, and submit them to be read by international audiences and for the occassional bit of pocket cash. That’s no shabby deal.

But every so often, I fall prey to..what? Exhaustion? Frustration? The inevitable writer’s block? I find myself berefet of stories, without inner intrigues or outre ideas, & I become convinced that I lack the time to explore them even if I had. I am nothing…a hack, useless, another wannabe who turns to the web because she’d never find validation in more professional quarters. But, (my inner monolouge insists) this wouldn’t be the case if I weren’t so busy depleteing my energies writing in support of other people’s agendas. Clearly my authorial genius is only being hampered by my inability to pursue my own projects. If only I had all the time in the world, I’d be spending my entire day in pajamas, writing the fifth book in my best-selling series of shockingly original, alternate historical, sci-fi horror, novels; and when I needed a break, I would dust my Pulitzer Prizes with the piles of spare cash I had around after being awared the “Genius Grant.”

Thankfully - this kind of brooding doesn’t go on long. A few hours, perhaps - a few days at the most. Eventually, I remind myself that I spent a year unemployed (thanks alot, Dot Com “Boom”) and instead of dedicating myself to my writing, I squandered it fretting over how I was clearly never going to work again and slaying Kobolds and other beasites in Everquest. And just yesterday, I spent several hours watching a The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy marathon.

So, my lack of MacArthur Fellowship nominations isn’t just a question of time. It’s also about dedication. And effort. And perhaps unplugging the consumer electronics.

However, I do think I suffer from writing exhaustion from time to time, because no matter how badly I would like writing to be the way I win my bread and butter, when I am sitting here wrestling with deadlines…particular deadlines induced my an outside source…what is almost always joy can occasionally feel very much like, well, work. And when your main escape is suddenly you job, it becomes desirable to look elsewhere for creative and mental release.

I’m disgruntled because I am, for myself, between personal projects. The last was done with a partner for a contest (which just had it’s voting deadline extended…which has me all the more aggravated since it still leaves it somehow…unfinished until the contest is done) and I have no definable goal on what to work on next. It is easy to blame my creative inertia on burnout, but that’s simply not fair. If my creative juices need to break and recharge that’s fine; I don’t begrudge them that need. (After all, there are reasons for vacations.) I just need to refocus my energies so I’m recharging them by reading and observing and digesting input from the world around me and not simply by stamping my foot and pointing fingers and denying responsibilty.

“Do or do not,” Yoda said. Never once did he say “Whine.”

So I am giving myself permission to get out of my own head for a while. I am making time for reading and for going out and new experiences. And hopefully, after a week or so I will feel refreshed I recall the stories I want to tell, what it is I want to say. If I don’t know after two weeks, then too bad; I will still watch fewer marathons and start enforcing regular, dedicated writing time - and just figure out what I’m saying while I’m going along. It may not stop me from me a hack, but it will make me happy to rediscover my own stories and revisit my words - even if no one every pays me for them and no one reads them but me.

I say to the world, “I should have been more specific. I want a multi-volume book deal.” And the world says, “Sorry, honey. We love you, but you still have to pay your dues.”

I must confess, I haven’t managed to finish reading a single book since the start of the year. I did start four books, which I am reading in small pieces, but it irks me that so far I haven’t managed to finish one. Instead, I am trapped in the middle of:

• Dubliners, by James Joyce.
• Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond.
• The Science Book, edited by Peter Tallack.
• Every Living Thing, by James Herriot.

Part of the reason I haven’t finished any of these is that I need what everyone else does: more time. I especially need more time—a nearly infinite amount, it seems—to catch up on my science reading. Every day there are new research articles, news stories, and blog commentaries to read.

Although keeping up is the biggest reading challenge, achieving balance is of equal importance. That balance can be lost if one dwells to long on the list of must-reads. Reading nothing but specialized or technical writing is a subtle danger.

Don’t get me wrong, such work is certainly real writing and real reading, but technical writing is often limited in the way it manipulates words. This narrowness occurs in part because medical, technical, and science writers always (or should always) strive for simplicity. It also happens because these writers are experts in a subject area rather than experts in a content area.

When reading creative writing, one has greater opportunity to find masterful writers who use techniques and words that aren’t commonly found in medical, technical, and science writing. Reading work that is more overtly creative allows a writer to re-immerse herself in the craft. Such reading replenishes the writing toolbox. Those words and techniques that aren’t common in specialized writing may still be useful later on, but you can’t use them if you don’t have them at the ready. The best writer is one who has a full toolbox, who knows how and when to use her tools, and who also knows how and when not to use them.

As for me, maybe I’ll have finished reading something by December. I’ll let you know.

I’m telling one of my friends about the latest crisis in my love life, and he says, “Is this the kind of thing you write about?” It’s not that my social dilemmas are that dramatic, it’s just that my phrasing struck him as writerly.

I write everything that happens to me, or at least everything that hits me hard enough to leave a mark. Some things don’t make it to paper (or computer screen), but I write them in my head. When I lie in bed at night, I take the things that bother me and I find words for them. The more something bothers, the more I rewrite it, until I can capture it with words. I tell and retell things. I make them funny. I find the words for what happened and how I felt. Writing my life, I’m in control of it.

I’m not sure when I started this. In college, I started my blog one dismal summer in Buffalo. In high school, my best friend and I went out for coffee every night, and I told him the stories of everything that happened to me, and it made things okay. In junior high school, I wrote truly awful poetry. Maybe I’ve always written and re-written my life, just like I’ve always wanted to be a writer.

This is what makes me think that I’ll always be somewhat of a writer, no matter how much my “career” goals change. I have to write. It’s something I just do, it’s the way I live. If I get stranded on a desert island with nothing to write with and no one to talk to, I’ll be making up stories about how much it sucks to live on coconuts and seaweed. It’s just who I am.

This site was intended to be as much a personal chronicle of the progress of our writing career as it was to be about writing itself, so with that I have an exciting announcement to make. Well, it’s exciting for me, anyway:

I’ve been offered a real-live writing job. Someone wants me to write for them, and they’re willing to pay me money to do it!

It is (with apologies to Star Foster) a new media job. In other words, I’m being hired as a blogger. No, this won’t replace my day job — the gig is paid, but it’s not that paid. I’m just going to have a little less time to myself after I finish my 9-5 grind. But hot damn, I’m going to be paid to write! The offer has been extended and I’ve accepted, contingent upon seeing the final contract and so forth, so I’m not going to release any details until things are signed, sealed and delivered.

Paid! Writing! Gig! I’m all a-tingle!

Spring may be the time when a young man’s fancy turns to love…but marketing men and women the world over have bottom lines to look out for, and Big Business can’t be troubled to wait on a young man’s folly. This is why all around us shop windows look like Cupid stumbled into them to vomit paper heart and lace doilies after a long night drinking ouzo with his Roman twin, Eros, card box boxes filled with flavors chocolatiers can’t sell the rest of the year are dusted off and slapped onto drugstore shelves, and diamond companies are working overtime to make sure you know that affection should be purchased with compressed carbon and the sweat of exploited workers; sure signs that the commercially mandated celebration of romantic love, St. Valentine’s Day, is growing ever near.

Don’t get me wrong, as cynical as I am (and boy, am I): I enjoy the hype and hoopla around this sugary-sweet day of days. Why? Simply put, I’m a fan of love. I think it should be lauded and celebrated and, when applicable, wrapped in a shell of dark, luscious chocolate. Love, in its many forms, is what drives us. It has been credited with starting wars, performing medical miracles, inspiring great works of art and causing the human body to perform outstanding feats of strength. And, more importantly to those of you reading here, love sells. From Paris and Helen to Bridget Jones and her infamous diaries, the word has loved love stories and, Aphrodite bless ‘em; they’re willing to pay to read them (and possibly shell out even more moolah to secure the movie rights).

The trouble is - how does one write an effective love story? I’ve heard it said that you shouldn’t write about being in love when you’re in love - because frankly, it’s hard enough for people who care about you and who are personally invested in your happiness to have to hear you wax lyrically rhapsodic about the electric thrill when your fingertips brush, or how you spend nights awake trying to determine the specific shades of gold that fleck the depths of your lover’s eyes; so you better believe that your readers aren’t going to have the patience for characters who do the same. Love, although many-splendored and all we need, is possibly the most difficult emotion to demonstrate in a way that is convincing, memorable and doesn’t read like the inside of a Hallmark card.

I think part of the challenge comes from the fact that although love can feel larger-than-life and all-encompassing, what it really comes down to is a series of individual moments in time - where a single act or decision has made all the difference. Right now, I am sitting at my desk, listening to a random selection of songs with the word “love” in the title, while I try to recall the literary moments where love was demonstrated in a single act or moment that have really stuck with me:

• The recognition of Odysseus by Argos (for me, infinitely more touching that the subsequent reunion between he and Penelope).
• Both Camille’s casting off of Armand and his impassioned public payment for her services
• Ever tender recrimination Heloise penned to Abelard
• The discovery of some cowboy couture (I admit, I’m cheating. I’m only familiar with the movie version, so I don’t know if this moment appears in Annie Proulx’s short story. All I know is that it darn near broke me).

Let us, for the moment, ignore the fact that the demonstrations of literary love that have stuck with me most strongly are those that focus on loss and sacrifice rather than flowers and sunshine (I can only assume its my psyche’s way of balancing out the fact I have a disturbing amount of Burt Bacharach in my music collection) and see what clues these vignettes might offer us about the powerful portrayal of love. One thing that strikes me particularly about this group is that - with the exception of Armand’s impassioned outburst - these are solitary moments; times when the lovers’ interaction, if it happens at all, happens indirectly. Does this mean love between two characters is better demonstrated through what they do when they are separated than by paragraphs describing the longing looks, sweet words and familiar caresses that pass between them when they are together? Or is it just a sign that I’m a bitter old maid who should stick to eating her dusty, after-season chocolates while the lucky-in-love write the great love stories? How do you get your characters to talk about the tender trap; and what love stories have had the greatest effect on you? (And please, nobody say Romeo and Juliet, or I may have to beat you with a copy of the Riverside Shakespeare. Tragic tale of the young, misguided, and foolish? Sure. Greatest love story of all time? No way.) I look forward to learning from your answers. Till then, I’ll be doing some in-home karaoke to Love Will Keep Us Together by Captain and Tennille.

I must confess that I don’t know who Deborah Woehr is, but she gets a big thank-you for linking to us anyway!

People tend to assume I have a problem with authority. (Maybe it’s the pink hair. Or the facial piercing. Or the tattoos. Or my “I Eat Babies” t-shirt.) In truth, I’m secretly a bit of a fan of rules. As I once told my old manager, “I don’t have a problem with authority unless it’s telling me to do something stupid.”

Which brings me to poetry. Free verse, you say? Folderol and balderdash, say I! Any depressed junior high school student can write free verse. Give me something with form! Let’s bring on villanelles, sestinas and sonnets. Even better are sonnet sequences, the concept albums of poetry. My favorite is “Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons,” by Marilyn Hacker. Here’s a sample (warning, lesbian poetry ahead):

I broke a glass, got bloodstains on the sheet:
hereafter, must I only write you chaste
connubial poems? Now that I have traced
a way from there to here across the sweet-
est morning, rose-blushed blonde, will measured feet
advance processionally, where before
they scuff-heeled flights of stairs, kicked at a door,
or danced in wing-tips to a dirty beat?
Or do I tell the world that I have got
rich quick, got lucky (got laid), got just what
the doctor ordered, more than I deserved?
This is the second morning I woke curved
around your dreaming. In one night, I’ve seen
moonset and sunrise in your lion’s mane.

And that’s not even one of the dirty ones.

From a writer’s standpoint, writing structured poetry is a great exercise. Something like a canzone or a sestina, where you have end-words instead of rhymes, are a great way to figure out how to really get your money’s worth out of a word. (Check out Canzone, also by Hacker.) Traditional forms of poetry can make you look at language in a whole new way. I consider myself an essayist, not a poet, but for me a villanelle is a little like a crossword puzzle. It’s not going to be art when I’m done with it, but if nothing else, it’s entertainment.

And of course, in the hands of actual poets, modern poetry in traditional forms can blow my mind. I like to introduce people to “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop by saying, “Read this villanelle. It will change your life:”

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these things will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

-Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.