Writing on Writing: More Writing!

I have been inspired by Hightouch to try to blog...at least a little bit.....
But, alas, what to say?
Firstly I have to say that this semester is a motherfucker. (Pardon my swearing! I like to swear!). What is the nature of this M-Fness? Hard to say.
Mother Fucker Nature, let me list you:

1. Teaching a New Class: This is not as hard as it sounds, but harder than it should be. For some reason, I have these little over achievers submitting writing to me constantly. CON-STANT-fucking-LY. Whose idea was this? Mine, apparently.
2. Working on Committees. If there is a BANE to any existence it is the creation and subsequent meeting of this and or that committee. One may actually love some of their compatriots on this committee but that does nothing to dull the mind-numbingness of just the sheer fucking actuality of BEING on a committee. Enough said.
3. Writing. Am I writing? Hells no. But I have forced myself to write for fifteen minutes each night for say the last week. So I have done _some_ writing. (If I could make the font of the word "writing" smaller so as to indicate how little I do, I would). 
4. Anxiety. This, friends, is the hobgoblin of little minds. Namely, mine. I worry the shit out of everything. This, however, does not prevent me from watching more TV than is perhaps advisable, and, somehow I manage NOT to worry while actually watching TV (and maybe drinking wine, I won't lie...) but watching TV does not make the anxiety go away. It just distracts it for a bit. What is this anxiety about? Not working on my novel. But, hey, whatever.
5. TV: I watch some/bit/a lot of TV. To wit: Brooklyn 99 (Andy Samberg, what what?); New Girl (not as good as it used to be, but Schmidt! He does Crossfit!); The Mindy Project (um, hello?? hilarious, also Morgan!); Modern Family (tight suit!); Parks and Rec (please don't talk to me about the small number of episodes before I have to wait until January....); Continuum (netflix). I think that's it....

And so, friends, my fifteen minutes comes to a close. If you want to know what else I am up to, re: thinking, I will just say sonnets, earthquakes, Pangaea. You're going to have to do the rest of the work yourself. 

(Did I mention my neck is fucked up? My neck is fucked up! Tomorrow: massage!!)

In Which My Son Becomes Hypergraphic

If I ever doubt my efficacy as a mother and a writer (and if you have found your way here, you know I do), my doubts have been assuaged, nay, slaughtered, by my son's recent foray into the form of the epistolary novel. The name of it, which I have coined from the names of his characters, is Letters from Parsel, Beestower, Night Jade and Kwen. 
Let it be hereby known that:

1. My son is a geek
2. Those names make me feel like I'm trapped in a bad fantasy novel
3. My son has written more today than I have in the last month, AND
4. The above make me feel like a wild success as a writer/mother

So rather than wallowing, let me just say Huzzah! And as long as Son doesn't stow the letters beneath his bed in the style he is wont to do (i.e. like a homeless person acquiring fuel for a long winter's night), I will remain, ever,

Proud Mother

The Blog is Dead! Long Live the Blog!

Over at Hightouch, she is contemplating the lack of inspiration for the blog. I agree that it is difficult to find reasons to blog, and yes, probably, FB is to blame for some of that.
But I am not ready to lose some of my favorite bloggers. So I'm going to try to blog in an effort to convey to them: look, we're blogging! It's a conversation! Let's talk!!

I spent most of yesterday reading In the Woods by Tana French (loaned to me by Hightouch). You can read my review over at Goodreads. But what I'll say here is, I like a good literary mystery but the key is balancing the literary with the mystery. If it's a mystery, it needs to have a good, solid plot that moves and doesn't get stalled in beautiful descriptions of the crime scene or the woods. Mostly these are notes for myself for the mystery I am not writing but need to finish. In The Woods actually has a lot in common with the book I'm trying to write and so it was a good reminder of what I want to do and how to do it. And what I don't want to do and BLEEP, I think I'm going to have to present resolution for both the main and sub-plots. Which doesn't mean back to the drawing board, it means writing more.
I think, maybe, I'll have finished the book in another 10 years. Damn!

Middlebrow's Anti-Anxiety Campaign

For many years, (how many? unknown) Middlebrow has been trying to get me to just fucking relax about the whole writer/writing thing.
This campaign was revived this morning when, packing up a box of manuscripts that I had, somehow, misguidedly, agreed to judge, I told him, "I'm going to think of myself as someone who likes to writer, rather than as a writer."
I believe he sighed heavily before saying, "You have a book out for fuck's sake." (I may have invented his use of the F word). "In any case, you should just relax and write when you want to write. Don't stress out about it."
This also brings to mind a conversation about a friend who became an EMT. We agreed that he would be a good caretaker in the time of emergency because he seems so even keeled and calm. Like Middlebrow. Though we agreed that neither of us could be EMTs because we couldn't do the simplest tasks, like insert an IV.
It seems to me I know people who are stress cases (me) and people who are chill (MB, our friend the EMT). We also have another friend, a writer whose writing we admire, and we recently talked about her ability to write, have children, be productive, make dinner, basically rule the world (Yes, Nik, it's you). I'm not sure how she does it, but it seems to involve not stressing out about any one thing.
So I need some of this non-stress mojo. Or does one have to care more than I do? Yes, I want to finish this novel, but I also want to hang out, go to the pool, see movies, and surf the internets.
But then I think about the novel, I think about writing the novel, or another book or whatever and my heart starts to palpitate.
What's a girl who likes writing to do?

Teaching the Night/Novel Class

Good evening. I will now, in so many words, tell you all about the kinds of novels I hope you're NOT writing. That is, the novel about (of course!) vampires, the novel about a world that seems suspiciously like the world of Harry Potter/Stephen King/Shannon Hale/Twilight/The Lord of the Rings/all the science fiction books you've ever read.
You want to write witty banter? Hurrah! You like Kilgore Trout? Even better! Your favorite novel is Lolita? Huzzah! (Okay, yes, there are at least three readers in the class. Out of 28).
Yes, we all want to marry Mr. Darcy. But he doesn't exist. So now what?
No, that doesn't mean we move to Mars and write about unicorns. Absolutely not.
What? Your novel is about a teenage girl who kills with her mind? You are dismissed.
Please do not talk about Twilight. Or werewolves. Zombies are acceptable.
Yes, I like Luna Lovegood too.
What? You can't name a novel you like? Only a movie? I will close my eyes and make you disappear.
What? Does the novel have to be made up? You mean, fiction? Is a novel fiction? Is that really your question?
Excuse me. Class is now over.