#annabwrites

[annabwrites]

chaos

I generally don’t like chaos. I like a bit of structure, or at least to know the structure of a thing so I know how best to escape from it, but pure chaos, oh hells no.

Part of this is because of the very nature of chaos: it is unpredictable. And for someone who loves a good pattern, chaos disrupts this.

I like some spontaneity, I like some unexpected. I hate being blindsided.

Even in my writing, I need to leave space for some pantsing. I tend to favor a blend of plotting/pantsing, and this has really formed over the years. For a long time, I just pantsed: all in! We’ll figure it out as we go!

As a writing instructor, I cringed so much over my own practices because it is anathema to what I tell my students: outline, have an idea of your map and where you are going! And yet I would not heed my own advice.

It took years to write the first manuscript because of this.

“I’ll know when I get there!” is not really a solid mantra. 1. Because it means I am always searching for “there”. 2. It’s an excuse to not put in the hard work of prework for me.

Turns out, my day job is a whole lot of pantsers. Surprise, I am not. I need to have the map so I know the general direction.

When asked about the new project I am working on and whether I know how it ends, my response was, “Yeah. He dies at the end.”

That said, I didn’t know how we got to the point where he dies (pun intended because he dies by sword). That is the journey, as horrible and beautiful as it is.

It’s like a road trip or sailing around...somewhere. I don’t want to say around the world because I don’t want to be on the water that long. So, a road trip it is (just go with the metaphor, guys).

We’re going to get in the car and start driving, probably in the middle of the night so we avoid traffic. And we’re going to see some weird midnight quinceañera at a truck stop at 3AM. We’re going to set off the truck stop lights, and we’re going to have some flat tires. There are going to be some days we have to sit in place and eat terrible bar-b-que at a terrifying honky-tonk when you are vegetarian. Some days you travel through rainstorms to see rainbows on the vermilion cliffs. Sometimes the snows are so bad they close the highway behind you and you have to creep 200 miles at 35 mph. There are eagles that soar over the car, and antelope that jump across the road in front of you. Bison wallow and bears cross where you just camped.

It’s a scary, amazing, incredible trip. And you get to the destination eventually, mile by mile, bit by bit.

And that’s writing: word by word, letter by letter. We eventually get there because we know where we are going.

[annabwrites]

can’t

I said a thing tonight in kickboxing that I didn’t mean, and even as I was saying it, the words tumbling out of my mouth, I knew it wasn’t right.

The scene and some context: Coach walks over as my partner and I are watching everyone else. We are a rather analytical pair, so watching first then acting is kind of our modus operandi.

Note: My partner and I are not afraid to look dumb or get it wrong; we just like to observe and then apply. Some of those moves get crazy. A lot of the guys in class, including Coach, make the moves look graceful, lovely, even as they fly in and deliver a punch. It’s art; it’s a brutal ballet. And they are so good at it.

I am not.

Coach: Two, three, knee, lead leg. Then Superman and high knee.

Me: Ugh. Really? I can’t do Superman. I’m terrible at it.

Partner: C’mon! You can do this! You’ve got this.

And it was the can’t that got me. I said “I can’t”.

It was a lie. I have done this move--that involves a small hop on my left leg while extending my right leg back at the same time I throw a punch with my right arm. It’s superawkward. It takes some strange brain power and body coordination to make it work. But I’ve done it before.

The truth is: I can do a Superman. And I have.

It’s just been a while since I did it last, and I’m not very good at it, but I can do it.

So I threw myself into it, and the more reps I did, the better it was. I felt less like I was flailing around and more like I was doing a coordinated move. It was not graceful. It was not beautiful.

But when I sank into the fighting stance, and I moved through the combo, it was there: the fluidity, the flow, the click--the can.

I can metaphor the life out of this story, but I won’t. I guess all I am saying here is that even as can’t rolled out of my mouth, it tasted wrong, and I felt a bit ashamed that it was that word I reached for. It’s such an easy out. It requires no effort.

Truth would serve me better.

I don’t know how to do that.

I am not very good at it, but I’ll give it more time and attention.

I don’t want to.

Can’t gives up. It ends the line. We’re done here, bye.

Can’t stops growth. It stops potential. It stops possibility. It ends creativity and opportunity.

I want to quit reaching so quickly for can’t. I will, I’ll try, I’ll give it a go: all better options. All better truths.

I can. It’s going to be ugly, it’s going to be terrible and awkward and uncomfortable. I’m going to laugh at myself; others are probably going to have a laugh at me. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to surprise myself with what I can do in the end.

[annabwrites]

names matter

Names are a hard thing, and trying to figure out names for characters, names for books, names for chapters, characters, even a profile is hard stuff. I can’t imagine choosing a name for a real human (hats off, parents!) because names have meaning, they carry weight, and they shape a life or an existence. They say a lot about who you are, where you are from, what hopes (or unhopes) there were when that name was chosen.

I have written characters who remained nameless for a while, those whose names changed because they turned out to not be who I thought they were when I started out. And I suppose this happens with people, too: the names we were given just don’t fit sometimes, and so we find or choose the name that we feel best fits us. I had to change a character name recently because when I said it aloud, holy gods, that would never have worked.

A friend (now a reader!) was shifting through the worlds of Tumblr, trying to set up her account, and Tumblr had a lovely list of potential names for her, of which LovingMilkshakeWerewolf, the name of this post, was one. I dedicate this post to her, though it turns out she had a long, lost Tumblr account out there, so alas, LMW was not necessary. Hopefully someone, somewhere, becomes LovingMilkshakeWerewolf. It would make a banging DJ name. Or a band name, right up there with The Flaming Lips or The String Cheese Incident. Hold on a minute: I am going to go look up some others....

No, there are some really poorly thought out band names out there, you guys, so LMW would really just join the ranks. Check out Cracked.com’s list. Some of these, though, are more around the story of the naming than the actual name (or maybe I just normalized the names...)

One of the names on here was the topic of a reallllyyyy uncomfortable conversation I had with my mom years ago (context: my upbringing was rather conservative in the middle-America flat states...)

[driving down the road with my mom in her minivan at the height of the 90s ska era, singing along to “Zoot Suit Riot” (because it was what was on the radio--the car had a tape deck, not a CD player...)]

Mom: Oh, this song. I hear it a lot. It’s catchy. Who sings it?

Me: Cherry Poppin’ Daddies. [continues to sing having gifted my mother with my pop culture knowledge]

Mom: !!!!

Me, side eyeing her: What.

Mom: Do you know what that names means?

Me [feeling the slow burn of blush and awareness creep in]: Yeah. Do you? [because you should always challenge information that, in your mother’s opinion, you should not know or have context for with ill advised questions]

Me: Maybe we should just change the station [promptly changes to the safer church station before the convo becomes even more awkward]

So, yeah. Naming intentionally is good because you just never know what will happen when you say it out loud.

[annabwrites]

literary dates

miapia907-blog  asked:

Picture yourself on the worst blind date ever. Like, awful-bad. Terrible-bad. Cringeworthy-bad. Which literary character is sitting across from you, where did he/she/It take you, and what are you doing?

 Oh man, it’s like blind dating PTSD with this one. Do you have the awful date who pulls the old “broken car” scheme so he can make out with you only for you to yank your stupid high heels off your feet and begin walking home down that dusty road (only for the asshole to drive up a few minutes later while you were cussing at him, his car, the cows, and the stupid road)? Or the one where your date keeps calling you the wrong name and then seems so needy (and handsy!) that you have to excuse yourself to the restroom and then sneak out the bathroom window (actually there was no window in the bathroom so you just had to hightail it out of the bar with him watching you–you ducked your head!–as you pinwheel your arms when you hit that tricky patch of ice on the sidewalk)?

You know who would be the worst, though? A poor clergyman who just wants a wife. Talk about needy and just kind of sad in that pity-date kind of way you went on when you felt that everyone else was moving on in life and you were sitting with your arrested development on the couch shoving your feelings in your face. This is cringeworthy. At this point, I’m trying to think of someone else who would be a good fit for him (it’s not me).

And then my mind goes to a certain father-killer, mother-lover. This is worse than poor, pitiful clergyman. God, what a wreck.  That’s a whole lotta no there. So much baggage. This isn’t even worth trying to redeem. Totally running out of the bar away from this, ice slick or no.

A man who keeps his ex-wife in the attic…well, he and the mother-lover can hang out. Nothing says “love you forever in reallllyyyy unhealthy ways” than a crazy wife in the attic. I’m leaving him at Red Lobster, but I’ll take a cheese biscuit for the road.

Some vampires–and sometimes their nemesis? That includes you, werewolf. Seriously, the weird broody thing, the odd insistence on virtue, the habit of repeating high school over and over again rather than just moving on. I mean, I’m okay with the teeth thing. It’s everything else, including the sparkles. I’d probably brush the wolf’s fur once, though.

So let’s see your list now–

[annabwrites]

on being brave

Once upon a time (January 2017, so not that far upon a time) a girl (ok, it’s really me) decided that was going to do a thing (it started with one thing) that made her really uncomfortable. And so, she embarked upon a journey to Las Vegas, a town she swore she had no desire to go to, to visit, to be any part of. And she still feels that way in October, many months after she went, but that is beside the point of this story.

Anyway, so this girl (me) did this thing (went to Vegas) for work and she learned some stuff and she met some really lovely people. There was a conversation that stands out from this trip, though, that is worth exploring. The premise: this group of people discusses various personality assessments–5Dynamics, Meyers-Briggs, DiSC, some color one (sorry color company, I’m just not familiar enough), and others. One of the lovely people turns to our protagonist (me) and says, “I bet you are a [insert arbitrary color].”

Girl/me: “Oh, thank you? I don’t know what that means.”

Lovely person: “You are sociable and outgoing.”

Girl/me: “AHAHAHAHA. No.”

Because the truth was, this girl very much wished she was in her hotel room at Caesar’s Palace alone, but she was doing the things within the thing that made her really uncomfortable, and a small part of her felt a bit triumphant that she did so well at navigating the uncomfortable thing that people thought she was more than she actually was.

Flash forward, and here we are in October. The trip to Vegas was unexpected and quite sudden, and it launched what I have called a year of living bravely, of doing things that for me are reallllllllyyyyyy uncomfortable. The term “bravely” though has always sat a bit wrong. I don’t feel that what I am doing is brave. Perhaps what it is is fearless? But this feels wrong, too, because I have a lot of fear and still I launch myself into the situations that make me uncomfortable, that push at the limits of my comforts.

Here is a list of those things:

Started asking for the things I want and need at work

Note: This sometimes bites me in the ass

Note: I have gotten to learn some really cool tools as a result of this

I applied for a grant to help support my writing.  

Note: I did not get the grant, so my year of whatever-this-is isn’t all triumphs (the focus is not on winning but on doing)

I started kickboxing--like the real Muay Thai stuff, not the weird dancey stuff

Note:  I was really bad at this, and sometimes the only girl there. I got      punched by children, I punched children (and men twice my size)

Note: I am not so bad at this now, though there is still a ton to learn

Applied to a writers workshop that I discovered from research for the grant

Note: Got accepted to the writing workshop! So add solo travel to the workshop to the list for this year, too

Really started to expand my skills in my side gig I do

Note: These went so well with some helpful guidance (because I often don’t get things right the first time…or in edits…) And I gained some incredible new skills.

Note: Also, my words showed up on the internet for a client

I went on vacation to a complete new destination and I did not do any planning (other than lining up pet care)

Note: This is rare for me to be able to kick back and let someone else do it all

I started taking digital art and tools classes

Note: This means sharing some really crappy art

I still have to write a lot and still travel to the writer’s workshop, so I’ll update as I need to this list. BUT! These are things that I would have talked myself out of before, and a lot of these I still had to talk myself into all the way up to actually putting my butt into a seat. And I did it. And I am incredibly proud of myself for doing these things. It’s been a very uncomfortable year, and still I am glad I have done these things.

[annabwrites]

on writing

Writing is a slippery beast. A puzzle of sorts, where these words go together but perhaps don’t fit well together, or these others create magic while those just fail miserably to convey the right idea or sensation or experience.

It is beautiful and wonderful and so effing frustrating at the same time. I’m drafting and I’m putting words on a page, and I know--I know--the words are ugly and clunky and heavy, without panache or the subtle arts that good writing has. But I keep putting that one word down and then another and another after that because I can make them better later when I hit the editing phases. I hope.

God, it’s a slow, agonizing process sometimes that makes me want to avoid my computer screen, to side-eye it from the kitchen or the living room where I am doing everything but spending time with those ugly, malformed words. They are monstrous when they are new.

I think over the last few years this is something I have grown into--the waiting, the being patient, the being fine with imperfection. Sitting with something imperfect is uncomfortable. And I’m learning to be okay with that discomfort because it drives me to be better, to push myself, to challenge my words and my ideas to be more. Truth, though: Sometimes I don’t want to be more. Sometimes I want to be lazy.

And then I hit a slump of woes: this story is terrible, this thing is all wrong, why am I doing this (you should read all of that in an agonized, if a bit whiny, voice). So I return to my ugly babies and I spend some time with the awful word creatures. And maybe after a while I have that motherly love thing where maybe they aren’t so hideous or nonsensical and I kind of love them a little bit more.