Writing Psychotherapy

My personal life has changed somewhat in the last few weeks with the loss of my job. I have a theory about life, perhaps one trying to circumvent the old superstition that "bad things come in threes." When one bad thing happens, I face every other potential stressor in my life on purpose.

So, since I lost my job and pitched to a literary agent in the same week, let's also get the car inspected and go to the doctor for a physical.

Now I have a $700 car bill, am waiting on test results for anemia, and working with a psychologist to see if I have general anxiety disorder. Just the fact that there is such a thing as "general anxiety disorder" that effects a large segment of the American population amazes me.

Could it be part of the problem is our lack of connection to anything other than our material lives? We all seem stressed out about money, jobs and stuff and I don't get it. Why? I'm a victim of it as much as anyone. But why? If I lost my house would my family really let us go homeless? If I couldn't afford food would my friends and neighbors let my daughter go hungry?

But yet... these fears exist.

(I promise this will get to writing.)

In the 19th century, after the industrial revolution, many writers and visual artists addressed the potential hazards of modernization. Many writers like Zola and Sinclair took the naturalist route and described what they saw in detail and when you read these works, like Zola's experience of the Hausmann-influenced Paris, I feel like we've never dealt with these issues. Not yet. More than 100 years later.

Gauguin's solution was to live, paint and frolic with the natives in tropical paradise.

And I think people today are no more "screwed up" than people 100 years ago. A nervous person 100 years ago might lock herself in the parlor with a book, or work in the garden, or get sent to the sanatorium for a "rest," but would more of us be more at ease if we had a more natural rhythm of work and rest?

150 years ago everyone had some connections to the land. If they didn't grow their own food, their neighbors grew it. They understood the limits of their universe and had a connection to ever part of their lives. We're detached. Our food comes from grocery stores. Our fuel comes in tanker trucks. Our clothes come from malls. We hit switches and lights come on. We type words on screens and send them to other people with the touch of a button.

Our ancestors understood their needs and how to fulfill them. Our ancestors worked and slept on schedule with the sun and didn't have a snooze alarm.

I've connected this with some 19th century writers, but how does it effect our writing?

Until Monday, I thought I was a naturally nervous person, that it was part of who I am and I had to deal with it. Monday I faced some of the reasons why that's not true. Monday I had to inventory some of my demons and realize how they effected me. And this wasn't done in the safety of the psychologist's office. This hit me like a sledgehammer several hours later. And I'm still recoiling.

But I also realized that the struggles my characters go through are quite literally the same struggles that I go through. I downright torture Étienne, and his turmoil is a veiled commentary on what I've faced and how I feel about my life.

We all do it. If we don't use our characters to vent or explore our emotions, then we give them the opportunities we want or we let them chase our dreams.

Writing. Ultimate psychotherapy.

What are you writing?

A new angle

At last year's The Write Stuff conference, I took a workshop with Karen Blomain in which we submitted a first chapter from a work-in-progress and then we literally cut it (with scissors) and rearranged it to explore other possibilities for where the story starts and other examinations of our own structure.

As a newspaper person, literary re-arranging didn't bother me and I found the act of tearing paragraphs apart (literally with my hands and ripping) quite therapeutic.

Now, I find myself struggling with a chapter and it irritates me and I find myself falling back on some of Blomain's techniques. Where does my story start? Or in this case, where does my chapter start? What do I need to convey?

More importantly, how else can I start it? Most of all I'm lacking momentum. I feel like once I find the beginning that works, the story unfolds naturally, especially since this is no longer a first draft.

I tried weaving some memories in with the character's (Étienne) present-day worries, using some of that imagery to symbolize the problems. It felt cliché. I'm tempted now to give him a nightmare, similar to his wife's nightmare a few chapters ago. Similar but different. Her nightmare was literally her subconscious tapping into the magic around her. His nightmare would use those same memories I used earlier to show his feelings... but they could have a quick exchange later about how "the house" is making it impossible for them to sleep.

I hate the idea, but I'm tempted to try it because everything else does not feel right.

As writers, we often push ourselves where we don't want to go.

The nightmare progresses...

My last post focused on revising a nightmare for one of my main characters. I would feel remiss if I didn't post my latest draft to show you the changes. This is still not final...

She stood at the conference room table of her former employer, Minerva Pollux. She gazed to the window, Lower Manhattan pierced by her bold and surprisingly thin reflection in a cranberry red suit. She turned, as if in slow-motion, the faces around the table coming into focus one by one. Twelve people surrounded the table, twelve old American men with gray hair and pinstripe suits, the type of men who smoked cigars and drank Scotch, each one a client. She could match these men in business smarts, in ruthlessness, even with imbibing alcohol and net worth, but she would never smoke a cigar. Galen sat at the foot of the table, striking a metallic blade against his palm over and over.
They waited for something. What? Basilie retrieved her BlackBerry from her pocket, splitting her attention between that and the television on the wall. The market remained steady. The name of the company on the stock ticker triggered her memory. They had gathered for a hostile takeover. Basilie had orchestrated it, leveraging her investors’ cash, Minerva Pollux’s reputation, and her own ability to carve the company into profitable pieces for the highest bidders. Oh, yes, Basilie did this all the time. Creeping tender offers from new shareholders taking advantage of a proxy fight...
Basilie stepped closer to the table, a crunch stopping her. Her rosary laid on the floor. As she knelt to retrieve it, her reflection caught her eye again, except this time, she wore simple robes instead of her suit. Her body glowed. A baby cried in the distance. Her breasts ached as she heard it. The BlackBerry rumbled. She read the number and answered her ‘mole.’
“They spun it off. Your department. Your crown jewel. They saw you coming.”
The ribbon on the screen announced the news. The value of her stock had plummeted when the corporation had spun off its core department.
“Damn it,” Basilie snapped.
Millions lost. Basilie turned to the table. She opened her mouth to relay the news and the clients transformed into... family. Her father sat to her right, then her grandfather and grandmother Saint-Ebène. The couple beside them might have been her great-grandparents on her father’s side. Others next to them bore a strong resemblance. The man closest to Galen rose from the table. A woman neighboring him wept. He had the sword. He extended it as he approached Galen, the ornate gold hilt fitting perfectly in his hand. She recognized the crest on the sword, and peered closer at the man with it. She could have been looking in the mirror. She saw her face, in the masculine.
“He has it,” her doppelgänger told her in middle French. “Matris Virginis—”
Galen punched him in the face, interrupting his statement.

Without knowing the exact plot, how much symbolism can you decipher? If she were your friend and she asked for help deciphering this dream, what would you say?

A nightmare

I am 'ahead' of schedule on chapter seven of my revisions on Courting Apparitions. This pleases me, even though I'm losing hope of how 'worthwhile' this all is. I listen to published writers struggle with selling their second and third books, editors from 'dream publishers' that publish a book and then take a year to say no to the next, not to mention the hundreds of rejections we, the unpublished, receive.

But I push those thoughts from my mind. Right now I'm writing for me. So I have more than one book 'done' to the level I like. To prove my ability and professionalism to myself in order to sell it confidently to others.

I'm working on a nightmare.

Literally.

This was the early draft(s):
She stood at the head of the conference room table, gazing halfheartedly at the view of Lower Manhattan as she noticed her own reflection in the glass. She wore a cranberry red suit. She looked meticulous, bold and surprisingly thin. Twelve people surrounded the table, with Galen opposite her. Galen struck a metallic blade against his palm, over and over. She turned to a television. The red ribbon, the same color as her suit, flashed a message across the bottom of the screen. The market remained steady.
Basilie had orchestrated this hostile corporate takeover with financing from some of the Minerva Pollux’s major investors, leveraging her ability to carve the company into profitable pieces for the highest bidders.
She looked at the men around the table, all men, all men except for her, all gray-haired men with severity in their faces. Each of these men, clients of the firm, had purchased enough stock to join in her creeping tender offer. Between their new influence as shareholders and the proxy fight Basilie’s operatives had stumbled upon, the deal should happen quickly and ruthlessly. While a good, old-fashioned corporate raid didn’t make sense these days, this one did, because Basilie had a client who wanted the core of the business. He just wasn’t willing to pay for the entire corporation. So, Basilie would deliver the piece he wanted. The BlackBerry in Basilie’s pocket rumbled.
She answered it. Her ‘mole’ was on the other end.
“They spun it off.”
“What do you mean?” Basilie replied.
“Your department. Your crown jewel. They saw you coming. They spun it off. We... I mean the board... no longer control it. They set up their own board and IPO.”
The ribbon on the TV screen announced the news. The value of her stock, the stock she bought for the men now gathered around the table, had plummeted as soon as the corporation had spun off its core department.
“God dammit,” Basilie snapped.
Millions lost. The gray-haired men in their navy blue suits rose from the table. They swarmed her, grabbed her, some holding her while others bit her and drank her blood. She pulled, but she couldn’t go anywhere. Everywhere she looked she saw arms. She shivered. She looked at Galen, sitting sentinel at the end of the table. The blade continued swinging up and down, until Basilie wondered: Was that her family sword? Then the heads of the gray-haired men moved away from her, and each of them had eyes like opals.

The writing is far from an example of my best. But that's why it's an early draft.

Now that I have this draft, I'm working on refining what it needs to do:

• The premise of a failed corporate raid is exactly how this character's psyche would process what's been happening in her life. BUT I've changed the intensity of what has happened before this dream, so the content of the dream must clearly foreshadow struggles to come.
• The 'crown jewel' needs to represent the feminine magic Galen has stolen from women over the generations
• The sword must be described
• Should Basilie's family members slowly replace the clients? What about Adelaide? How does she fit?
  
• Should the baby Basilie is carrying factor into this dream. I think so.

• Finally, I scribbled this note on a piece of paper today: "What does the magic say to Z? (Basilie)

Hopefully, by the end of the day, I will have the answers.