Work of Art for Writers

There was a show on Bravo for two seasons (I'm praying it comes back!) that brought like 20 artists together for a competition: Work of Art, the next great artist. Each week they'd be given an assignment, work through it and then it goes to the gallery for judging and some one's eliminated. I loved this show. Watching the artistic process, seeing how each artist comes up with his own ideas for challenge and the rush to finish by the deadline.
So I was thinking this would be cool for writers except for one thing....watchin a dozen or so writers sit and curse at their puters while they pounded the keys and hit the delete button probably wouldn't be too entertaining.
Too bad.
However, I could probably watch Stephen King write.
Not matter how interesting the process, the grunt work isn't always that entertaining in some industries. Watching a work of art go from lumps of clay and paint to magical works can be interesting. When writing the excitement is all in your head. The scenes are like visions that take us into another, far away world that is much more fun than everyday stuff.

So here I sit on a Sunday afternoon, ignoring the counter clutter, laundry and other stuff, to go into that far away land inside my brain. Its so much more interesting than anything else I could be doing today.

Forcing it?

Sometimes it doesn't matter what you write just as long as you write. Forcing something down on paper/keyboard can be liberating. Sometimes.
Other times its torture.
I have several books completed, but not ready for public viewing. Some are shorter, but still book length but there's a few that are huge. When I can't wrap my brain around anything new I go back and play in these books. There are a few that I really like and would love to see them all polished up for Amazon, but for some reason I procrastinate. I believe this is some kind of phobia. If I finish them I'll put them up on Amazon and God forbid someone hates them! Crushing!
And then there's all these new stories in my head that keep nagging at me.
The full time job really gets in my way.
I have a really boring job and actually have time to work on my stories there, but its a room full of cubes and everyone can see each other. Just when I'm in the zone and going good someone demands my attention. Its like walking out of a cloud. Suddenly I'm not miles into my story but being yanked back into the cube-world. (I hate cube world) I did try to use head phones but the others objected because I didn't jump when they wanted my attention. Even if it wasn't about work--all summer long we do NOTHING--they were still offended that I would zone out on them. Heaven forbid I miss the building's gossip!
So now my writing time is either early morning, before work or after work or at night. Morning is when I do my best writing but sometimes I get so pulled into the story I lose all track of time and end up being late for work...where I'll sit in a cube and do nothing for hours. After work is better but there's dinner to make, family to talk to and dogs to walk. I usually practice piano after work too. Sometimes there's meetings.
I admire Zoe Winters who sets word count goals and meets them. Maybe that's what I should do. Page or word goals to get the job done.

Any other goal setting ideas? How do you get it done?

Ambition...where did it go?

I feel foolish confessing my writing has fallen by the wayside. Normally writing is my savior. Its where I go to hide from the world. In the past year it feels as if I lost something. That drive inside me that makes it so I HAVE TO write has faded, vanished, slammed into park and refuses to move. I can't seem to jump start anything to do with writing.
This scares me a bit.
I've been painting a lot and have started to learn piano, but I know these are substitutes for that thing inside me that wants to be writing.
As silly as it may seem I blame this on a loss of a pet. Elvis, my parrot of 11 years died suddenly. He was jumped on by one of the dogs I fostered and died in my hands. He nipped my finger once and was gone. I cried for days. I'm still crying inside and the smallest things can set me off. Its been over 6 months and still my heart weeps. I blame myself. I was his protector and I failed. His death is all my fault.  I don't blame the dog. Something fell beside him and he pounced. My daughter and I were standing right there and still couldn't stop it. I don't even think the dog knew what it was when he jumped on it. Probably thought it was a toy. Dogs move instinctively. I was the failure. Elvie's death is mine. I should have kept him safe.
Silly, I know but since then I can't write. I don't know what I'm waiting for, or why I've been so stuck over this. He's not the first pet I lost and I'm sure won't be the last. But parrots are special. They are almost like little people. He talked and would say the absolutely right thing at the right time. He ate when we ate, slept when we slept and was part of the family. I miss him terribly.
They say grief has five stages; Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I guess I'm in depression since there is no guilt. Or maybe there should be guilt. Or is that in bargaining? Am I trying to bargain my way out of guilt? Justify that I didn't keep him safe?
I know accidents happen and we can't stop the world, but still my heart broke when Elvis left me.
Weirdly, about two weeks before he died I had this overwhelming feeling that he was going to be gone soon. Like I looked at him once and knew he would leave me soon. The thought so horrified me that I shook it off immediately.
If I ever have pychic powers I don't want to know things like that but sometimes...
Why don't I ever get the lottery numbers? Something useful.

Then a few months ago my dog died. Halston was 16 and a golden retriever so we knew it was coming. Still didn't make it any easier.
So now I'm plodding through an old story, trying to get it ready for Kindle but my heart's just not in it.
Tell me how to get "it" back. That thing inside that makes you write. I think it's still there. It just won't come out and play.

Captured!

Putting it out there...

We all know the scary side of going Indy is putting your real name out there with a big bold sign that says LOOK WHAT I DID.  When we were real little most were anxious to show our artwork or newest creation to the world. We vied for attention of adults. Then getting older we were suddenly too cool to care. Shrugs, head  flips, acting out in other directions, and, for some, hiding replaced our anxiousness to share.

Stephen King never seemed to have this problem. He wrote in his book, On Writing, that he was sending stuff out to magazines even as a kid. He had a big nail in the wall over his desk and used to spike the rejection letters onto it. I find this brave stuff for someone of such a young age. 

I had good parents. We were on the poorer side of life but happy. My parents went the extra mile to talk with us and be active in our interests. When the teen years hit I was mostly a hider. I hid my stories and most of my art work but for the life of me I don't know why. Even after high school I wouldn't show my work to anyone. I got married, never shared. Had kids and made up stories just for them and let the adult stories fall by the wayside.

Then I met Leni. Our kids were in kindergarten and we'd sit outside by this big tree waiting for them to come out of class and talk. She was one of the smartest people I'd ever met. A voracious reader, Leni was the kind of person who believed we were capable of anything. Eventually, I told her about one of  my stories and her first reaction was: PUBLISH IT! I stared at her. Never in all my years of writing had I thought of publishing anything. I wrote because I couldn't not write. But Leni was a do-er. She saw something and did it. She was amazing and encouraging and I decided to write something aiming to publish.

The story was about a woman who went back in time to the days right before the Civil War. It went into how a woman from the 80's  adapted to life without all our modern conveniences and how she dealt with the climate of slavery, suppression of women's rights, etc. It was a hard write. I'm way too liberal to be able to survive that without a fight.
That story is in a box somewhere and will probably never surface again, but I have to thank Leni, my dear friend, for giving me the power to put it out there. Without her I'd still be hiding. Leni passed away from MS but her spirit has never left me. She was all that was good in the world.

My question under all this is when did you decide to put it out there? How did you find the courage?

Marketing....the other side of Indy work

As in any art things are a work in progress. Even after the book is written and rewritten and rewritten there's more to do. Once the story's told we move on to preparing it for publication/formatting, cover art, and then correcting the formatting.
When I first put Soul Mates up for some reason in the first paragraph (and only the first) all the "o's" turned into zeros "0". Very weird. Then I saw all my other typos! Yikes! How embarrassing.
All corrected...hopefully.

Moving on to marketing (Yuk!) Marketing is like stripping naked and running down Main Street. You want people to notice you but actually putting yourself out there is intimidating.
So you Facebook your people, email your friends and then attack the web.
I'm just starting the attack and am in the process of building a website. Scary putting your real name on a website. Here in Aimless land I'm pretty anonymous, but out there I am who I am.

www.jeannedonnelly.com

For better or for worse.
But like the tiger and life in general: Its a work in progress. 
Now where should marketing go from here? I have a few ideas and I'll be blogging them later. Where did you go with it?

Punctuation!

I see the story unfolding and suddenly someone yells. Woof! Woof! Woof! (It makes sense in book, I promise)

So since I've been warned by writers and an agent that we should never use exclamation marks. So I stare at the page...what to do, what to do....
I need to read some more. I usually read constantly, two or three books at a time, but lately I've been painting. When my soul is sad I paint. All other emotions I can write through, but not sadness. For some reason slopping paint on canvas works. Its like blanking my mind out in a way nothing else does. Time ceases, paint heals.
I miss reading. This has gone on way too long. I need to get over the losses and find a way back to what I enjoy.
Maybe then I can see what other writers do about the woof.