So its Day 2 of NaNoWritMo, National Novel Writing Month, and Im in. But Im not in it to win it.

Let me explain.

National Novel Writing Month is a month dedicated to reaching for a writing goal of 50,000 words. The rules are write freely, crap and all. That 1667 words per day. Thats a lot of words…especially if they are words that you are writing just to hit a word count goal. For me, thats not what writing is about. And for me, thats not what participating in NaNoWritMo is about.

For me, participating in NaNoWritMo is about working towards my goal of being a writer that WRITES, producing my greatest work on a daily basis. If each day I hit the one thousand six hundred and sixty seven words, thats a bonus, a great bonus. But if each day, I write six words, well, those six words, I know, are six words of my defined greatness.

NaNoWritMo to me, for me, is a community of energy of simply writing. Its a cheerleading team cheering you on to your goal. That goal, you can make yourself. That goal, doesn’t have to be word count. That goal, can be to simply write. In my opinion, thats the best goal to have, especially if you are writing a novel for the first time. NaNoWritMo is an energy flowing around the world to write. I can get with that. Its many people doing for one month something that they’ve put off doing their whole life. I like that too. For many, making the time to write, no matter how many words, for one month out of the year is Bucket List worthy and this is their shot at crossing it off. Im totally cool with that. And to those that want to finish a 50,000 word first draft of a novel in 30 days, go for it, if that is what you want to do. To each his own.

As for this writing woman, its about riding the energy wave being fueled by writers all over the world and using it as yet another motivation to write daily. Yesterday, I wrote 21 words. Today, I wrote 2162. Both days, I feel I’ve been successful in reaching my goal. What people need to remember here, (and in life, if I may dare to go that far) is that everything that is setup with a certain motivation doesn’t necessarily have to be your motivation. Use it however you need to, in the dosage that works for you. Take from it the parts that accommodate what you are in need of and leave the rest. Its that simple. Lastly, don’t cancel it out because its intended motivation and your motivation are not the same. (Yeah, that was deep.)

So there, I really don’t care about winning…all I really care about is writing.

Until next time…

Its been a long night. I haven’t slept well in over a week and I don’t foresee any Zzzz’s at the end of the tunnel coming anytime soon. So after taking my daughter to school this morning, I returned to bed for a little while to see if sleep would make an appearance. It didn’t. So,  I reached for what at least helps me get to sleep (staying asleep is another blog post, trust me)…Reading.

Because Im determined to make it to the bookstore for my writing sessions today, I figured going the route of reading about writing would set my mind and thought patterns in the direction of todays intentions. And it did…in overload. I read one post. Then one article. Then before I knew it I was crawling my way through the blog of a writer I follow on Twitter for everything she’d ever posted about writing. (I’d like to take this moment to label this as ‘sucked in’.)

While for a writer, reading is indeed a good thing…a great thing, it cannot be the only thing we do and call ourselves writers. There really must be a balance. I have soooo many writing books. From “how to” to “why to” to “when to” to “who should” write a book. My confession with the in-denial obsession with writing books is that its not always for me and my writing. Im a writing coach and the reference material helps me with my clients. (Yeah, lets go with that). But back to my point, if we, writers, are spending most of our time reading about our craft, talking about our projects, thinking through the details of how to apply what we read, but rarely write, I have news for you… You’re not a writer, your a reader.

We are so fortunate to be writers, as it allows us to just sit and do what we love with minimal requirements. A pen, a notebook, and idea and we’re off and running. At least we should be. But if you’re anything like me, you have to have a few other things as part of your writing ritual to get your mind going in the right direction. For me, a big part of that ritual is reading about writing. The key, though, is knowing when to stop reading and start writing.

So does your writing ritual involve reading first? I know one writer that has to read after she completes her writing sessions or otherwise she can’t get her head out of her story. How much reading is too much reading for a writer? Whats the cut off point…15 minutes? 15 pages? 15 books?!?!

Its a beautiful balancing act that we must perform as writers. But hey, somebody’s gotta do it! Remember this when reading about writing (or anything that you enjoy doing) …Reading a map doesn’t get you to your destination, its when you actually start to take the journey that you ( and your writing) truly begin.

Until next time…

Its a truth be told in restarted letters kind of day

A voice in a cast iron skillet, I’ve got something to say kind of day

Its never the right time to quit, but Im watching the hands on the clock of my life kind of day

Its an offer me water, boiling hot, killing the germs of bad words kind of day.

Its tears on a tissue meant for whipping my behind kind of day

Its not fit to carry my thick girl weight, a scaled back kind of day

Been chained to a fence, cant say my name in another language kind of day

Ive flip the stations on a TV hoping to catch my interest kind of day

Sell me your products that I need to remedy the disease of the last thing  I bought from you kind of day

Casper’s a friendly ghost but I want my great granny’s spirit here with me  kind of day

I jump at the sound of the chimes dancing just as I asked them to kind of day

Write whats in your heart not your distorted thought-filled head kind of day

Pull the plug out of the claw foot basin of my soul kind of day

Leave me alone and let my pains drain away kind of day

The breath traveling through my lungs skip the last part of the trip kind of day

Pull the covers up over my head, its scary as hell out there kind of day

Wondering if the Universe hears my cry kind of day

Yep.

That kind of  day.

Dear Readers/Supporters…

Sometimes life happens, and you simply don’t want to do anything but stay in bed and mope. On those days, you’re still a writer(or whatever your love is for). On those days, when you push yourself to do what you love, even for 5 simple minutes, that’s when you learn what you’re made of and what your true calling is, and why you are here in this life.

I tossed back the covers and wrote, even if I did nothing else today…even if only for a little while…even if only for me…even if the words are never read. I wrote to breathe. And I encourage you to take time to do what you love, even if only for yourself every now and then.

Sincerely,
Brook Blander
A Breathing, Human, Real-Life Writer from the Heart…Because I Must Be

8:58am

Today is the first day that I have sat down, wiped everything from my to-do list, and am reclaiming my Wednesday Writing sessions. I’m sitting here at my kitchen table, no clue why I chose to sit here, vs going into my studio, with my three journals stacked next to me. One, I have been writing in for over a year, and Im about 3/4 the way through it. One, I recently found the lined pages that I have been searching for for over a year, so I intend to christen those today with simply a quote of inspiration for myself. And lastly one that I purchased last week with intentions of dedicating it solely to my two current projects. I also have Stephanie Dowrick’s Creative Journal Writing book that I have been enjoying for the past few weeks. Its inspiring to me as a journal writer and with my current project about journaling. So I keep it handy.  From there, two of my favorite pens, a black and a purple fine tip sharpie. Laptop, which my family refers to as “the little croissant” in front of me. Im ready.

10:35 am

But I don’t begin…

Oh how I dream of the days that I will be more able to push my writing button inside and like the old days of Inspector Gadgett, say “Go go, gadget WRITE!” Until then, I’m going to sit here, with my hand on the keyboard, an open document in front of me and wait. Cause that’s what we writers sometime have to do…

So the b(earth)day is coming to a wrap up…well at least thats what’s the calendar says. And since I didn’t really go by the calendar to get it started over a week ago, I’m wondering whether I will really let the celebration come to an end anytime soon.

The topper, on Saturday, Love tells me she is heading to the office to work for an hour after returning from a weeklong trip to Canada. I pout for about 30 seconds, then remember that I want to catch up on a few episodes of a TV show I recorded and like watching it better when she isn’t around asking 30 questions through the show…and of course, totally quiet for all of the commercials. Go figure. So off she goes to work and off I go to the chaise with remote in hand. The princess, MiniMe, out of the blue decides, “let’s go to breakfast”. Okay? Weird. Why is she up this early on a Saturday? But okay, its the start of by Bday week+, so I bite, and at her request, head off to the bedroom to get dressed. Love returns home, comes to my bathroom and asks me to come look at something she picked up while she was out. I walk into my kitchen and screamed at the top of my lungs. There standing in my kitchen was my best friend, TJ, from Atlanta. She’d flown in to surprise me. I cried, I screamed, I jumped up and down. You’d think Ed McMahon was involved somehow. She told me she was coming for my birthday, but a month ago told me she wasn’t going to make it. I had been so sad the past few weeks. Moving to a new place with no friends here, has been hard. The internet can only go so far. Sure there are people around, but everyone that KNOWS me knows that I am very particular about people’s energy and only serve my TEA (Time Energy and Attention) to those that my spirit deems a-ok. Anyhooo, I spent a wonderful five days with my best friend exploring places I had wanted to in my new city and hadn’t gotten around to as well as showing her my favorite spots so far. Between spa, and pedicures, and sushi, and so much more, I’d say we had a wonderful time, indeed.

So then Thursday, the actual day of my bday, I had already expressed that I didn’t want a big hoopla of a bday this year. Unfortunately, I woke up not feeling 100%, so a low key day was perfect for me. I spent the day sleeping in, going for a drive and sightseeing (don’t you just love looking at huge houses?) and then off to seafood overload I went. Thats all I wanted for that day. And it was absolutely perfect.

Friday, I requested a day in nature. We went to the Japanese Garden(http://fwbg.org/gardens/japanese/) and I am 110 percent in love. We stayed in the garden, acres and acres of land with bonsai’s, tea houses, a real life zen garden for nearly 4 hours. One of my bday gifts was my first bonsai tree, a japanese hand painted silk fan, and a small buddha statue for my plant. Ecstatic! Yes, I still am!. We took tons and tons of pictures, which I will be posting soon. The beauty is truly breathtaking. I am very sure its a place that will be frequenting. My favorite part of the Japanese Garden was actually not in the garden but outside of the gift shop. I have always wanted to see an actual lotus flower growing from the ground. Not a picture, the real thing. So there in the garden were the leaves (pad?) but all the flowers seemed to be dead. I don’t know anything about the seasons and lotus flower growth, but I saw the dead ones and knew this must not be the time. Then I noticed a turtle and in my attempt to get closer to see if it was real or a statue, I noticed this!!!

Saturday was a second spa day. I’m head over heels for Kings Spa (http://www.kingspa.com/). It is like Jeju spa on steroids. So much amethyst! So much energy. Its a Korean spa and sauna. Stayed there this time (went on Tuesday with my best friend also) basically all day. So relaxing, so much detoxification, so good for me. My favorite room of all is the BaseRock room. Talk about sweating, healing, and more sweating. Ahhhh! Topped the evening off with my daughter’s drumline performance at the end of their 12 hour drum-a-thon. That’s one seriously AWESOME band and drumline.

And today, Sunday, the finale, in order with my request, I am reading, journaling, and looking at my sparkly toes. Switching back and forth between Lifetime and the US Open, fresh cup of tea, and my nook color in bed. This morning, I played with my plants, watered, clipped, and gave them love and reiki. They are thankful, I know.

Its been a great entrance into this new year, and I know, the best is yet to come.

Until next time…
B

Here are your FIVE FRIDAY nuggets of inspiration and motivation (8/19/11):

1. Express gratitude as much and as often as you can.
2. Stretch your back on a daily basis. Yoga is great, if you want to take it that far.
3. Know that EVERYday is a good day.
4. Align your thoughts and emotions with your intentions.
5. Regain (or maintain) your sense of humor by making funny faces at yourself in the mirror for 3 minutes today.

HAVE A GRANDFABULOUS WEEKEND!

After weeks of packing, moving, unpacking, and settling in, I’m finally back in the studio, typing away at my word count goal for this week. I wrote a scene that though I initially set out for it to be an opening,  lacks the strength I was initially hoping for. While it will be used in my overall writing project, after lots of much needed plastic (keys) surgery, I just don’t think my original thought of placement will work. Good writing none the less. And exactly when does it work out the way that I planned anyway?  Ah, so is the life of a writer.

One of the things that I am working on in my writing is not being so attached to every word I write. So I feel like I am in a sucky relationship where I need to pull back and let some of the words I know, gently, in my its-not-you-its-me voice, “Im just not 100% in love with you”. Though Im still in the beginning stages of working on this technique, withdrawing my attachment to the work, its a process that I’m learning to like. My writing didn’t turn out the way that I intended today. Okay, thats fine. Its not the end of my writing world.  And not every word written is heading on the track to publication. My old thinking pattern would be more of “Woe is me! I spent all this time writing today and it isnt picture perfect and ready for publication just the way that it is. Im a horrible writer.” A bit drastic, but honest. Im taking this journey of simply writing. Every word released is a word closer to the words that are perfect, the words that I was indeed looking for and the words that will make it to publication.

Its okay to not be 100% in love with every single word that we write as writers. Its a process. I often think of it visually as running water. Have you ever went away on vacation or for an extended time and you return home to your kitchen sink and you run the water just a bit before catching the water that you intend to drink or cook with. Its kind of a process of letting the old stuff make its way through the pipes before you can get to what you really want use. Its the same with writing. Its important that we write regularly, daily if you can. Its a way of kind of keeping the pipes clean. Then, know that when we do turn on the faucet, its okay to let the words run a bit to get yourself cranking out more of your better writing. Warm up. Its okay. It really is. Don’t be afraid to let those beginning words know that you just aren’t 100% in love with them. They served their purpose and now its time to continue on.

So lets CONTINUE ON…

For the past three days, I have not written into the draft of my novel. I have, instead, sat quietly and written what I call “listening notes” based on what I’ve written and what is simply coming to mind. Just thoughts and ideas. Details and pieces. Everything that is being born out of simply listening to the story as it comes to me, from the characters themselves. Keep reading, I’ll explain.

I’ve given myself four months to get the first draft of my novel completed, and it has been quite the learning experience, not only for me as a writer, but as a being. Putting that clock/calendar on my head was supposed to serve the purpose of having a deadline, which I am still holding onto, but with more flexibility. Im flexing time for quality.

Since I first begin writing this novel a few years ago, I have had many, many false starts. Great ideas turned to good ideas turned to a word-count that lacked substance and story. So naturally, knowing myself, I know that lighting a fire under my writing to get it done by a deadline would make me…write. But then, writing is not my problem. Losing myself and my writing in ideas and the romance of finishing the book got me back at the the starting over line time and time again. Like baking a cake, who has an interest in putting all the ingredients together popping it into the oven for five minutes and taking it back out and starting all over again at the mixing bowl. It takes time to get to completion.

So, I’m releasing the rush. The rush to know. The rush to demand my characters tell me everything right now. With an AUTHORitative voice, I’ve said to them. “Stand here naked in front of me and tell me your business. All of it. In four months, (well three now…lol). All of you, tell me everything that has happened in your entire life, why you did what you did, didn’t do what you should have done, and everything in between. Tell me what you learned, what you remember, what you want to forget. And be quick about it!”

Even more, in indirect ways, for this particular book, these characters are modeled after my ancestors. Would I demand my great-grandmother sit in a chair for four months and just talk nonstop for the benefit of me writing a book?!? No. But if I let her speak, with her own voice, in her own way, tell her own story, she just may spend time with me…four months or more, or less, telling me what she wants me and the world to know. If I show up at a dedicated time reserved just for her, in an environment that is comfortable, absent of hurry, and simply listened for the sake of listening, she would let me feel the heartbeat of their stories. I would no longer wonder what happens next as I’m pounding away at the keyboard. I would know the story when its truly time to begin writing the story. Who am I to say what the story is, and how it should be told? Who am I to dictate that we start at the beginning and end at the end. Maybe the end doesn’t matter. Maybe the beginning isn’t the best place to start. Maybe the gut is smack dab in the middle of life for them, my characters…the ones that I am writing about. I mean, it is their story, right?

In my meditations as a writer, I sit and wonder if there’s another world out there… one that harbors all the characters that will go into books. Some that have actually lived in this world and some that await patiently to be born onto the pages of a book. And what they must think of fiction writers that try to “create” their lives, without regard for the one’s they lived, or desire to live. They must shake their heads at the many ways we put them in situations that have nothing to do with the meat of who they are. They must ache from the way we toss them into places they don’t belong. And we make a story out of them, expecting the pieces to all fit perfectly, all because we simply did not wait…and listen.

In my journey as a writer, I am learning the role patience plays. I am simply a vessel for the story. I am simply a channel for the characters from their world to ours. No where is it deemed that we writers have the divine power to make them speak and do what isn’t their truth. I know there are writers/authors that will disagree, but this is my belief and it s what’s working for me. Its working to keep me aligned with my values as a writer and a person… I believe that each soul has a story to tell. And now, finally, I am settling into the comfort of taking it a step further to know that in the telling of that story, the characters, the true storytellers, have a right to open and close their mouth in their own timing. They also have the right to say as much or as little as they want to say. Its their story, not mine.

When we write from a place called Truth, we write from a higher place. It is there that stories that breathe into our readers are born. Its there that stories are authored for greater good and not simply entertainment for an audience or to massage the ego of the writer. In a place called Truth, writers become who they are truly meant to be, a path for the story. We must listen. I must listen without bias to the story that is being told to me in the way that it is being told. No rush to tell my characters to “get to the point, I only have four months”, when for them, its all “the point”. Who am I to say that this part of their life/story doesn’t matter? And who am I to speak on behalf of every eye that will read the finished work and say what we will and won’t care about.

There are times in the writing process when I will have the power, and it will be my job, to wave my magic wand and ‘edit’ the book. But I am learning that now is not the time to exercise that portion of my responsibilities as a writer. Now is the time to simply listen….no matter how long it takes or how fast or slow the story lands on my soul.

Patiently,

I don’t
Have time
To be human
I’m too busy being a woman
Branched welt lay on my back
Like live oak trees in winter
Swollen with story, dictated by the winds
I tie my voice in stained cloth around my head
My hands wring water and secrets from my man’s unfaithful armor
Worn each day into the battlefield of
cotton, corn, and curses.

No room left in my arms to hold humanity
I tote my own baby crying hungry on my hip
And I hang mistress child from my tit
My prayer daily is that there will be nourishment and strength left in me
To feed my future with a substance that I myself am forbidden to taste.

I don’t
Have time
To be human
When I’ve got just enough in me to be a woman
No surplus of emotion to spend on nonsense of
Human Equality and Civil Rights
You say I should WANT to be counted
I’ll have you know
Each night, as stars play lazy across the sky
My body ache for sit down and sleep
My massah comes to my shack
and count two eyes, two breast, one private part
He’s go Zero concern for my sleeping babies beside us
Zero shame to tell my man to step outside
I drift away in a fantasy of flowing river
As I am not all there and accounted for

I simply
Don’t
Have time
For being human
Im occupied with being a woman
My knees are rubbing against washed out floorboards
and ache against dry earth pleading for rain
And at night.
At night when Im somebody
Between the darkness
In the eyes and on the ears of my God
The creator of this woman I am
I think about your fights and your drives
To make me be human
And if I survive
Oh if I survive being a woman.
I just MIGHT give your being human a try.

Copyright 2011 (c)  Brook Blander.