distractions

Here I am posting another entry on my blog. Yay for me. Or not?

Earlier this week, when the second assignment directions were posted for the online writing workshop I'm taking, I was excited. I followed the directions for the beginning of the assignment. Read; pause and do without looking farther; read; pause and do...and so on. I was able to do the preliminaries pretty quickly.

Okay, so I stumbled a bit with the first "pause and do." But I did it. And once I let myself go past the "list five xxx" and I listed seven, I found my stride. The assignment is about writing a story that is hard for some reason. It's more complicated than that - but that's one of the basics.

Still, I found what I was supposed to find from the opening exercise. I've attempted to write it once on screen-paper, once on paper paper, and three false starts in my head. Arghhh! To get feedback from the facilitator, the story has to be posted by tomorrow. It is 11:30 pm now and I have to leave the house at 6:15 AM to get to work. I just packed my food for the day (I will be out all day, again) because I have finally accepted that I am not a person who can get up a little early in the morning and make my lunch. It just doesn't work; so I have discovered that it generally works to do it the night before. I then just have to remember to take it with me. I aided myself in that endeavor, too, by putting my lunch box with the extra heavy duty ice pack inside right in front of the front door. I will have to move it out of the way to take it with me.

See how easily I get distracted from the task at hand?

So - my story. Which is unwritten. Which I was excited about from the warm-up but it never materialized.

Now what? I can lose a little more sleep and write (if it will come out) or I can post something else I'm working on. I do have something which is related to the thing I was going to write about. And this is all perfectly "legal" in the workshop ... I just like writing new stories and thought this one was a "go..." .

I think I'll give it one more shot, now that I have my mini-rant about not writing it out of the way.

Wish me luck!

poetry in performance

Save the date: Saturday, March 14th.

Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest. Created by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, Poetry Out Loud is administered in partnership with the State Arts Agencies of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

By encouraging high school students to memorize and perform great poems, Poetry Out Loud invites the dynamic aspects of slam poetry, spoken word, and theater into the English class. This exciting new program, which began in 2005, helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage.

I will post more on this event as it comes in. This is a great program and the Oregon recitation competition will be on 3/14. The schools will be selecting their participants by mid- to late February. More information is available on the website.

time doesn't come in a bottle

Time is what I am struggling with. Why did I choose this past week to "catch up" on some hours (oh, so that I might avoid the end of January/beginning of February monetary slump that I've hit every year for the past three or four). The same week that the two classes I'm teaching started. The same week that dragon boat practice started. And that the writing workshop started.

Time.

And still I made time, as all of the writers in the workshop made time, snatching it from here and there in order to write. To read others' writing and post comments. To build a temporary community word by word.

And I wonder about what role time - or lack of time - has in my writing? Certainly someitmes in the past there were periods where I was not so busy; vacations or down time from work when the hours didn't come, and I was not a prolific writer during those slow times. Sometimes when I'm not busy I struggle to put down five words in a row.

So when is lack of time a management technique that forces me to look at what I'm doing or forces my inner editor out of the way so that I can just write because, goddammit, I need to write now and I don't have time to worry about whether this first or second draft makes sense. Just get it down and hit submit.

But I overdid it this week in terms of work. I had to steal time from sleep to write - which also is not new, it was just a difficult week to do it in. Right now I'm stealing time from the gym where I am supposed to be doing my dragon boat practice routine to build up specific muscles - especially important since I just found out on Friday that I lost the partial insurance stipend from the college where I teach because I didn't work enough hours, so right now I'm uninsured and can't afford an injury. And here I am still in front of the computer.

In her book, "How to be a Famous Writer Before You're Dead," Ariel Gore talks about making writing a priority. For me that priority means time. I've managed to juggle and finagle and pop in some hours here and there this week and I need to look at my my every changing schedule and put in some time for the next few weeks. Right now the writing can't wait - literally I find myself jotting quick notes while driving, (when I stop at the light, maybe) - I make notes between interpreting at my work because I can't write and sign at the same time so notes are cryptic and disjointed and it is sometimes over an hour before I can get back to that brief five second note I'm trying to write - and then there is turning on the computer when I get home at 1:45 AM after I promised not to because I have something to say and I'm up until three or four in the morning writing and then I only have four hours of sleep before I'm getting ready to go back to work.

Priority. I'm trying. And meanwhile I"m writing. And I know I am not alone in the struggle with time. We are still writing. My schedule is a little more sane this coming week and I'll see how the writing goes. I can't keep cutting sleep in order to write, yet I know I will if I have to. I could (and did) when I was twenty-five for theater; but that was a long time ago - I don't recover as easily from long bouts of not enough sleep, my body gets cranky.

Priority = making time. Which is not the same as doing nothing, because then where would my inspiration come from?

I made writing a priority for November's novel in a month. I. Can. Do. This.

- - - - - - - - - - -

This is adapted from a post earlier today in the forums on the Lit Star Training workshop I'm doing with Ariel Gore.

Picture from Tortuga Ln
where recycled glass products,
including Time In A Bottle,
are for sale

random rant: the nature of language

I know that language is dynamic, but...

Would someone please contact those who make the radio commercials to tell them that the correct pronounciation of 'comparable' is *not* "compare-able"?

...posted from a rest stop on my way to an out of town job after hearing it twice in less than an hour...

sleep is over-rated

So. I overscheduled myself this week. I know, I already said that a few days ago. Then I had a writing assignment; the first draft of it was awful. But that awful first draft ignited the spark and it led to completing the assignment the next night. And I did trade sleep for writing time and I'm okay with that for that night. I want to note that I couldn't *not* write that night; the story was there and I wanted to get it down. It actually went a little quicker and longer than I anticipated.

Then today a job finished two hours early (yay!), so now I'm headed to take a nap before I go workout with the other dragon boat paddlers.

It's all good.

more: borrowed words

Here is another snippet from Richard Foreman's notebooks for you to play with. (Jump down to 12/28/08 for more information. Basically, this writer/director/producer writes every day and makes his raw material of random dialogue available for anyone to use. So, use it!)

Challenge yourself to create characters and a scene to go with this dialogue. Of course, snip, expand, alter as needed!

= = from the Richard Foreman notebook Cafe 2 here = =

Is this really your kind of town?

I haven't been here very long.

But you get the feel of things kinda fast, or I miss my guess.

I'm the kind of person--

Nothing satisfies you, yes?

You're right

So this isn't really your kind of town. I mean, for the first day or two, you said to yourself, hey , maybe this is ok. You managed to squeeze out a little poetic frisson from a turn around the corner into this vista, then that vista, but then with a lkittle more time, it didn't resally seem to hold up, did it.

You're right.

Of course I'm right. This town is a shit town. Take it from me, I had deep experience of this shit town, and a shit town is what it is.

That doesn't leave much doubt.

On the other hand, a lot of oppoprtunity is here, for somebody looking for a certain kind of something.

random oops

I looked at my schedule today. I kind of forgot to schedule in time to write for the next week and a half or so. Really bad timing because, well, I started an online writing workshop this week with Ariel Gore.

I will make time.

Let's see: sleep or write? How about a little of both! The beauty and the bane of online classes for me - they can be done at any time, so then they are. But looking ahead to February, the second half will be a little easier. The January 29th interpreted performance will be done and I have the opportunity now to not ooops-schedule myself.

Mindful scheduling so I don't have to make these write or sleep decisions. Well, not so often, anyway!

same movie: two views

I had an interesting experience today. My partner and I went to see a movie. It was a last minute decision. We went for a walk up to our little "strip," as we call it (yay, our neighborhood has developed a little personality over the last couple years!).

Part of the plan was for her to drop off some flyers for a couple of upcoming classes. But the shop, PaperDoll, was closed. So we went down to the Bipartisan Cafe for some soup and coffee. While we were sitting there, we looked at the marquee across the street at The Academy Theater to check again what movies were playing and the times. We had a music gig to check out later tonight and a friend's birthday party; both of the events started at 8:30 pm and it was just past five. I looked up a synopsis of one of the movie's on my crackberry and we decided to go to the 6:30 showing. That would make us fashionably late to the party, which was just up the street from our house.

The movie we saw was Happy-Go-Lucky. We both enjoyed the movie - but some of our perspectives were interesting. It was like we were sitting side by side but watching a different version of the same film. The walk home provided us a nice opportunity to discuss what we saw and how we interpreted the story. I can't say that either of us is right or wrong -but I found it fascinating how differently we understood what was going on in the film. We watched the same movie at the same time, side by side, and yet we walked away with nearly polar opposite beliefs in why what had happened, happened.

Good movie. Interesting responses.

ps: We didn't make it to the music venue, because the we didn't know the time the musicians we were going to hear would be on. We did make it to the friend's birthday party up the street, but left when they were preparing to go out for karoake. I have a 10K walking event tomorrow morning in Forest Grove and need to get up early....which is why I'm calling it a night now and heading off to slumber land.

pss: Think about something you've read or seen. What could be viewed in a different way from your own interpretation of the event? Try writing the scene from a different perspective than your own and make it just as believable and true as your experience.

2009: New Beginnings

New President. New Year.

Same old gray and rainy Oregon weather - only more of it. The flooding which was expected not to happen is. The temperatures rose faster than expected and there is much more rain than predicted and part of Coast Highway 101 was closed today due to there being a foot of standing water on the road. Drivers could not even see the road. And flood watches around Portland and across the state.

Right now it is raining so hard that our normally outdoor cat, who is just itching for a good fight, went out on the front porch and just sat on the mat. Everything is soaked and large drops are falling rapidly. Lester just sat there in as small as ball as he could make himself and waited for one of us to open the door.

What the wet has to do with new beginnings is, well, nothing!

Some things change. Some stay the same. Change is constant, like breathing. Snow, rain, sun, wind. Seasons.

A new year and a chance to say, "okay, this time I will ____" and insert what the next project will be.

For me, it seems that 2009 will be the year of relationships and not doing everything alone. A little scary - but one new type of work I'm doing puts me in an environment where I am working with other interpreters, and dragon boats is, of course, a team effort. And scheduling more time with partner. Happy sigh.