The Question

For writers, and people with anxiety, ideas tend to swirl in their minds. I'm used to ideas floating about in my mind and getting mashed and formed. I'm used to scenarios and what if questions.

I finished a cold reread of my manuscript, Manipulations, last week. I even transferred it to iBooks so my husband can read it and make comments.

I have to recommit to the writing game. Either pitching my fiction to agents or pursuing some nonfiction opportunities or both.

When I interviewed for Cedar Crest College's Pan European MFA in Creative Writing, we talked about portfolio building and the administrator said something very succinctly that hit home: what kind of writing do you want to do?

The fiction answer is easy. But I realized in an instant that I have not found a sustainable voice for nonfiction. Sure, with 15 years in journalism under my belt, I can write anything at any time. But it has no soul, no enduring message. It's a glimpse of a moment that I may or may not have witnessed.

I still don't know if I'll apply to the program. I want to, because it's time I took my words as seriously as I take my history or my economics.

But the next few months, barring the necessities of school and life, I will write something every day. And explore my voice and the different things I can do.

Last night, I finally started a non-fiction piece on my recent travels to Tunisia and I edited my Jimi Hendrix bio review. I had a paragraph in my head that I thought would open the Tunisia piece but something else came out.

In about an hour, I wrote 2,000 words.

That might be settled

I submitted my first review to Hippocampus, and filled out their contributor form and am trying to get a nice headshot from my favorite photographer.Meanwhile, I had batted around some ideas about altering the secrets in my characters' pasts and I think those ideas have been defeated, pretty much by friends who reiterated to me my own logic of why I created those secrets in this manner in the first place. An author's slap in the face to snap me out of it.I have managed to transfer files from the computer to the iPad without an Internet connection. I thought this would facilitate editing on the iPad, but it doesn't. I had editing with the limited functionality of the Pages app. I can create this way. That's fun. But editing is tumultuous.I also figured out how to format my manuscripts so I can read them in iBooks. Now that is far-out cool!Spring break from my college courses commences tonight, and once this ends I'll be knee deep in projects and papers: an oral presentation on the Brazilian real, a paper on central bank policy during this global recession, and a capstone project on French and American politics/military presence and its effect on nation building in Djibouti.

Renewal

I can't technically say that I haven't written, because in the last five weeks I have written two academic book reviews and two oral presentations-- one of the status of revolutions in the Middle East and another on the future monetary policy and goals of Her Majesty's Treasury in the United Kingdom.

But my enthusiasm for my fiction has withered. (it happens)

And I never got around to organizing my notes from my recent voyage into a travel essay on France/Tunisia.

I blame dental surgery. I lost five weeks of my life to an implant that got infected and had to be un-implanted.

And now I'm dreaming of my fiction, of creative non-fiction, and a potential MFA.

Last night something happened. A friend who is part of the Hippocampus Magazine community asked for reviewers of juicy non-fiction. I suggested Ted Morgan's My Battle of Algiers and the new book on Steve Jobs (which is not juicy in my opinion). She encouraged me.

Then I studied the publication and noticed they have a rock and roll issue coming up. I went to the library and found a biography of Jimi Hendrix.

And despite homework about the long term effect of monetary policy on the money market and the exchange rate, I found myself typing about Ted Morgan.

I loved his book and I think a lot of other people will too. And I suddenly remembered how much I should be writing-- that I love writing-- that I am a writer and it makes me happy.

Laptop turmoil

I was writing for the first time in weeks and I finished a sentence that had the word "eight."

The next sentence began with the word "the" and my h key suddenly stuck. No h.

A few minutes later all of home row died. So I turned it off and hoped it would work in the morning. It didn't. By the end of the day, the delete key and the numbers had died.

At this point, I had a few choices. I took the keyboard from our desktop, which worked, but wouldn't be a workable solution.

I could get out the five-plus-years-old laptop, but that would be slow and require using Microsoft word. That left the iPad and the Pages app.

And that's working! Offers a new vantage point, and in that way, it's exciting

100%

The last few months I have kept myself sane by working on what I term "the prequel" but even it has reached that point where you have to either develop a structure and take the project seriously or keep writing for fun and acknowledge that most of what you have done will later be undone when you try to transform "fun" into a marketable piece.

I never came to terms with this when the final book in my series started kicking about in my mind again, more like an emotional haunting, where I find myself trapped in the characters' angst.

So what does this mean?

I heard fabulous news from a colleague of mine from the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group (GLVWG), Kathryn Craft, whom I respect as a writer and for her diplomacy, wisdom and personality. She signed with an agent at Donald Maass' agency.

She had queried 129 agents prior to the one who signed her.

Meanwhile, other friends wait for news from small publishers, agents and contests. Other friends walk the "Indie" route and explore E-publishing, self-publishing and developing their own small presses.

And then people ask me what I'm doing. I'm sitting on my work.

I am still not confident the concept is 100% and I am close to nailing down what it should be. I want to see more of where the publishing industry is going. When I enter this game again, I hope to have three solid manuscripts and other projects in the works. That way if one doesn't sell, I have two others to hawk. And if the first one sells, I have the material for a multi-book deal.

But the key here is 100%. Because I think-- in anything in life-- you must stand behind it and be 100% confident. If you're not, those you're trying to impress will find your weakness and exploit it and crush you.

Revisiting the prequel

I've had a lot of projects, a daughter with ear issues, my own dental care, work hours and economics to contend with... It burnt me out on writing, with productivity in mind, so I let my mind wander and returned to my circa 1978 "prequel" of Étienne's youth and love story.

I've drafted the new first chapter and I like it. I don't feel it's perfect but it's a start. I'll share page one:

Chapter One


Heat consumed Étienne from multiple angles; the sun from Ghislaine’s window soothed his nude flesh and his aching thrust erupted inside her with a rippling whirlpool that chased away the Paris dampness. He offered a tired grunt and savored that moment when his muscles dissolved. She gasped and collapsed against his chest, her body still quivering against his.

He cried. Her cheek pressed against the metal of his identification plaque. The slight tickle of Ghislaine’s long bleached blond hair blanketing him and the soft yet firm push of her breasts pressed against him had punctured the cigar smoke. The telltale earthy scent of Montecristo #4 had fallen when his commanding officer reported that Étienne’s father had died. That was more than a week ago. With the aftershocks of the sex the only barrier between him and his new found grief, Étienne wrapped his arms around Ghislaine and braced for the tears.

His father smoked Montecristo #4 cigars. The cigar smoke had filled the barracks like a protective cloud. It stayed with him as he packed, during the eight-hour, red-eye flight to Paris, and through his brisk walk to Ghislaine’s apartment.

Character cultural relativity

I'm not sure if that's an appropriate title, but this addresses how characters react to each other within the confines of their experiences and their culture. From an email to a friend: "In a way I wanted to tell you this in person,but life's unpredictable nature might make it impossible for us to sit down and have a conversation. I put all my writing away a couple weeks ago. It was frustrating me and not enjoyable so I decided to read, clean my house, and potentially revisit my other hobbies. Just to recharge the batteries. This is always an awesome exercise because it allows the crazy new thoughts to enter your mind. Like my werewolf stories. Then I had a strange thought about Étienne's back story. I have waffled a bit on his history-- at one point he failed his bac (the end of high school exams used for university entrance) and went to work for his father. He and Basilie then represented two avenues to success: him, hard work and her, education/ family background. This is starting to sound like a blog entry. May have to copy it and post. Then I made Ét narrowly pass his exam and make it into a prestigious private art school. And drop out when his father died. So he drove Basilie crazy because she wanted to attend a similar school and couldn't get in and he dropped out! Similar to the kind of jealousy she feels when he gets an O visa to the US and she gets an HB. But that bothered me because Ét probably wouldn't have the academic credentials or the money for such a school. BUT if he doesn't go to school, he'll end up conscripted into the army. Which I always believed his brother was serving his conscription when their father died. But really, Edmond is the one who went to university and has small children so realistically he would have a deferment.  It looks like if Étienne served his conscription, it would have been in 1977, and probably shortly after the independence of Djibouti. Étienne. Army. Djibouti. With me? I do not doubt he would be a lousy soldier, but I think he would be very clever in making social arrangements for the guys, and helping repair uniforms of his peers to avoid the hazing aspects of the military.  And what makes this interesting is according to the sources I could find, 98% of Djibouti women TODAY still undergo severe circumcision/ genital mutilation. And I think being an observer to a culture that does this could make him very pro-feminist. I also think that it would make some interesting conflict with Basilie about the status of women in the world, since she's an educated, upper class European and argue that the world has improved for women and Étienne would believe her a sheltered, ethnocentric brat. Angel"