The Bitter Quill

No, not a paying gig. I’m talking about something intangible.

See, it’s easy for me to lose confidence in my abilities. (I’m guessing other writers are also plagued with this sort of doubt.) So often, the constraints of time are given priority over the desire to produce work of quality. Sometimes, even when time is not of the essence, it can seem so hard to fight for quality when so many around you are choosing the polysyllabic and ugly over the simple and clear.

I’m not saying that all long words are bad. It’s just that people should not be allowed to make them up simply because their active vocabularies are limited.

Pardon my digression. Where was I?

Ah, yes. My big accomplishment for this week is finishing a short piece of science writing. For this piece, my work entailed:

• Finding articles in the scientific literature dealing with my topic of interest
• Reading these articles and gleaning the relevant information from them
• Summarizing the relevant information in a format that a general audience will understand what I’m talking about
• Presenting the background material that a general audience probably doesn’t have

Ideally, the process goes exactly as I’ve described above, and a decent product comes out. This time, I think that may be the case. Of course, it’s hard to judge one’s own work and easy to be too critical or too fond. I am sure that if this piece ever sees print (or pixel—it has been sent off to a webzine) I will be instantly dissatisfied with my work. Still, it’s nice to finish a piece, to believe that it doesn’t suck, and to believe that maybe I’ve got it in me after all.

I love a good pen; I love the heft of them, to roll them in my fingers and to compare how their nib feeds ink into various paper stocks. I also can’t tell you the last time I used one to write anything longer than a phone message.

Upon consideration, it makes sense; most of what I write these days is destined for electronic distribution, whether it be email or blog fodder or professional documents. However, there was a time when I happily filled lined notebooks with my wild ramblings. Maybe there would only be a single worthwhile idea or turn of phrase to pursue – and somehow with my hand trailing across the page as they were set down, I felt somehow connected to them. There’s something more sterile about typing ideas directly into well-formed, consistently-spaced black lettering against the white monitor screen. With their responsive keys, spell-checking and automatic formatting, sometimes it makes things too easy. Even typewriters, with their hard-pressed keys, their clickety-click and turning of the ink cartridge around the spool offers a much more sensational writing experience.

Yes, yes, writing is about the writing, not about the tools…but I do think the tools can make a difference. Computers especially, since they serve so many other purposes. My computer, in addition to being a word processor, also serves as: my gateway to the internet, my television, my organizer, my entertainment center and my main (and preferred) method of contact with the outside world. Staying focused is difficult enough some days; and the natural drive to multi-task when writing on a PC is an additional burden.

This past week, my internet connection and I have been at terrible odds; mostly about connectivity issues. And as I’ve spent hours wrestling with them when I meant to get other things done, I begin to wonder if this marvel of the modern age is not equal parts blessing and curse. At worst my pens sinned by running out of ink; it never took hours of my life away demanding complex (and inconclusive) diagnostics; and the only place it took my attention to was further in my head. Even now, as I write this, I have my modem and router shut-off in order to resist the temptation of quickly checking the weather, my e-mail or browsing the web while I collect my thoughts. And even with all that shut down, I cannot stop myself from browsing past MP3s as they come up on iTunes. I’m doomed.

I’m not sure I can go back to the pen, though. Like my memory, my handwriting (never good) has become lax to near illegibility due to lack of practice. I don’t know which is the better option…to write less hindered and more freely, or to be able to read the fruits of my labor once I’m done.

Hmm…maybe I need one of those digital notepads that translates your handwriting into legible text. That’d be sweet.

I’m rereading Lolita right now. I do this every couple of years, because in my opinion Lolita is the best book ever written. I’ve borrowed a copy of The Annotated Lolita from one of my friends, and it’s fantastic. I now know what all those French words mean. Of course, I’ve sort of been borrowing it for the last couple of months, because I’ve got this darn graduate school thing keeping me from reading as much as I’d like. (Except for papers with titles like “Learning and Applying Contextual Constraints in Sentence Comprehension,” I’m reading plenty of those.) So, anyway, I’m trying to hurry up and finish Lolita, because my friend wants it back, and I turn the page, and right there, on page 265, is exactly what I was I trying to say about why we feel betrayed by false memoirs. Except, of course, Nabokov has said it much better than me. (Don’t you hate how Nabokov always does that?)

So here it is. From Lolita:

“I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader’s mind. No matter how many times we reopen King Lear, never shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert’s father’s timely tear. Whatever revolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person the more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We would prefer not to have known at all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has seen.”

Of course, as a writer, I’m fine with the hot-dog stand operator writing poetry, as long as his stuff doesn’t get published before mine.

I’ve been thinking about Cyn’s recent post about how she writes her life, on her blog and in her fiction. It seems like most of my life goes undocumented. Most of my life doesn’t seem to warrant documenting, however. Does the world really need to know about my compulsive visits to the grocery store or about my altercations with bookstore security personnel? (Don’t worry. Nothing was hurt but my ego.)

Perhaps it’s a lack of writerly confidence. To write fiction, or such types of nonfiction as memoir, seems to require a combination of narcissism and bravery. I think I have the narcissism part covered well enough. I find that I enjoy few people’s company as well as my own.

I also have some bravery. The thing some writers seem to fear the most is a rejection letter, and perhaps I do too. I admit I’ve sent very little material out, but that’s usually because I have none ready. Besides, rejection is better than no response at all. At least that way you know you’re not still sitting at the bottom of the slush pile.

There’s a second kind of bravery, though. The kind that’s willing to present one’s ruminations on the mundane details of life to an audience. Some writers, particularly humorists, have made lucrative careers off of daily minutia. However, it takes a certain kind of confidence to foist such rambles onto the public. I seem to lack that type of bravery (but perhaps it’s just in my closet next to the vacuum I never use).

Fortunately, I don’t believe my affliction is permanent. I’m sure one day the little details of life that have been hiding in the shadows will come forth. Until then, I have the details of biology to write about, and I doubt I will ever exhaust them.

I have decided to end my already-tenuous association with Phillyist, the blog for which I was a writer. I’d like to say that the reasons are many, but really there’s just one: They now require their writers to indemnify them fully against slander and libel charges. What that means is that if someone should sue Phillyist for something that I said, like “Your food made me sick!”, I would be legally and financially responsible.

Now, the editors (disclaimer: One of them, Star Foster, writes for me here at Bitter Quill) assure me that the Gothamist Network (the folks that run all of the “-ist” blogs) management only included that language because of their lawyer, and they will in fact be happy to defend me against any potential legal difficulties that arise. While I don’t doubt the editors’ earnest intentions, I also don’t have great faith in Gothamist’s continued selflessness. If they had no intention of ever leaving me in the lurch, they wouldn’t have included the language in their disclaimer.

On the one hand, I stand by what I write, and accept responsiblity for my own actions. On the other, I’ll be damned if I’ll provide Gothamist with content that helps their network grow, all the while hanging my own neck on the line, for a measly two bucks a post. After all, I’m not exactly always nice in my reviews. The last thing I need is some irate restauranteur with more cash than sanitary kitchen safeguards siccing a pack of suits on me because I write about how his restaurant made me sick in a public forum.

Does this mean that the Cranky Cocktail is dead? Not necessarily. I may revive him at some point in the future — he’s practically begging for his own blog. In the meantime, I’ll be concentrating on my other writing projects, and my other blogging gig.

Hmmm. I wonder if the Phillyist editors (at least two of them read this blog) will link to this post in their regular local blog roundup feature? I think it would be awfully courageous of them if they did.

Recently, guest editor and all-around awesome chica, Gillian Neff, wrote the following:
I know writing is pretty much always a painful process, so I suppose my point in this little public blood-letting is tell those of you who DO have ideas to go with it, despite the pain.

It struck me as funny when I read it; not because the pain of creation is a funny thing (although some times it can be), but because when I was thinking about what to write here this week, pain was also on my mind. Perhaps the creative process is not unlike menstrual cycles; we all sync up if we spend too much time together. (Yes, Bitter boys; that means you too.)
I recently re-read something I wrote…indeed something that I wrote not that long ago, a month at most…and I found I had little-to-no emotional connection to it.

Well..that’s not entirely true. I want people to enjoy it or to be moved or inspired by it, to be upset or troubled or angered or even disgusted by it; anything but bored or disinterested. But that’s not emotion, that’s just ego. What it is I don’t feel, what is suddenly missing, is the passion I had while I was in the midst of it. Gone is my concern for the characters, vanished my empathy for the challenges they face, my familiarity with the landscape in which they exist entirely dissipated. I suffered with them, suffered through them - battling not only their own demons but my own fears of the dreaded white space, writerly inadequacy and easy distraction just to get their story told. And now that it’s told, I shrug my shoulder in their direction and move on to something else. I know that I did write it, but I remember very little of the actual process. In some cases, I’m hard pressed to believe the words on the page are my words - so far removed are they from my current frame of mind.

It’s not just this recent piece, either. In the end, I’m like this with everything I write. In the most extreme cases, I’ll take something up to read it immediately after writing it down, and find myself surprised by the content on the page. However, the mighty afflatus is rarely this strong, and I more often than not I struggle with the mere putting down of words - wrestling with willful protagonists and unwilling syllables until I’m clutching at my head and pressing my eyes as though the mounting tension in my brain could be translated into the right words, the key to the great, unfolding mystery, if only I could massage them out. When in this state, even when I’m not actively writing, I’m continually considering and composing. (I’m useless to talk to during these times; all social (and oftimes professioanl) functions go on autopilot so that the story can work itself out.) In the thick of it, I am all afire. And yet, even after all this, I will later find my the fruits of my labor surprising, sometimes alien to me. How is it that these things can consume me so completely one moment - then have no meaning to me the next?

Let’s leave the obvious answer of “madness” out of it for a moment. My working theory (and the one I’m sticking to) is that this process is the necessary stretching, sweating, swearing & tearing of creation (whole lives - indeed, whole realities - don’t come into being simply, but sanguinary). And, like the more standard sort of births, that we are eventually permitted to be aware that there was pain, but not to remember the pain itself so that we’ll keep on going - willing to bear it again.

Which, I suppose, is a kind of madness in itself.

I don’t believe I could stand to be in that heightened state perpetually; although I do believe there are people who can and do. Whethere they’re the geniuses or the burnouts I don’t rightly know. Does this separation happen to anyone else - or is it just my own brand of crazy?

I was caught up in Beantown for an extra day, so we’re a little behind, but tonight we should return to our regular irregular posting schedule!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s contribution comes from special guest Gillian Neff, who is some sort of big muckety-muck editor for some fancy-pants cancer research journal. Her red pen is fearsome indeed! Thank you so much, Gillian.

People who know me are always surprised that I don’t write fiction. I read fiction constantly. I’m a relatively creative person, and I am absolutely fascinated with words and lingual history (I am obsessed enough that I have occasionally considered getting the first few lines of the Beowulf Manuscript tattooed on me). A good turn of phrase, whether written or spoken, is enough to give someone my life-long admiration, and I consider written wit as high an art as a Giotto fresco. I know my grammar rules and have a good feel for the flow of language. I have done plenty of editing, and I flatter myself that I’m fairly good at it, based on the number of my friends/coworkers who have turned to me for help on numerous occasions.

Yet I, myself, do not write.

Certain teachers and friends of mine, particularly our Esteemed Host, have attempted to rectify this by inspiring me with kind words and advice. Several times I have sat down in front of the computer and started putting down words. Sometimes the words came easily, and sometimes it felt more like trying to convince a cat to take a shower – futile and sort of bloody. But in either case, I discovered the same thing.

I have absolutely nothing to say.

I am utterly, completely, and 100% devoid of inspiration. Sometimes I’ll get short scenes in my head that I like, or snatches of sentences. However, it’s never enough to craft into anything so long as even a one-page story. And if I try to massage it into a longer form, I find that it feels trite and contrived.

This is a point of much frustration to me. Despite being a person of an otherwise creative nature, it’s like there’s a black hole in my brain where plot would come from. I’ve tried brainstorming exercises and role-playing, I’ve tried just writing and seeing where it goes, I’ve tried expanding on my germs of words and ideas, but still — nothing that hasn’t been done a billion times previously leaps to the fore. Yes, I know the old saw about there being only 100 plots or somesuch, but some people are able to take those same plots and graft their own, new ideas over the old, synthesizing them into something new and interesting people would actually care to read. I missed that gene, or that training, or whatever it is that gives you that ability.

I know writing is pretty much always a painful process, so I suppose my point in this little public blood-letting is tell those of you who DO have ideas to go with it, despite the pain. Let the ideas fill you and inspire you and drive you. Run with those little plots and themes as far and fast as you can. Writing really is a gift, and it deserves free reign. So go, write your little hearts out, and I’ll just wait here with my red pen for when you’re done.

Demanding? DEMANDING? I’ll give you demanding, you…

Ahem.

It’s true. Everyone seems a tad weary right now (and, dare I say, a little edgy too). Midwinter malaise, maybe? My writing projects have stalled and I’m filled with sloth and ennui. On the bright side, this weekend I’m going to attend Boskone in order to give one of my favourite authors a thank-you letter from the Child’s Play Charity folks. I organized a holiday fundraiser this year on behalf of his fan club.

Yeah, I belong to a fan club. Wanna make something of it? It’s actually a valuable networking tool. Not only do I get to meet some fantastic people, but I also get to hobnob and rub elbows with many professionals in the field to which I aspire. Plus, the charity drive that I organized raised a lot of money for a good cause.

It ain’t a bad deal.

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.