Stress

I've heard people say that stress was a good motivator to keep working. Keep the money coming in.
Great work if you can get it.
But I'm talking to my Tax Bracket 1 and 2 sistren and brethren. The minimum wage, low wage, no wage job holders who keep Aleve's parent company profitable. Stress, for us plebs, is a constant.
You figure out an outlet, some way to let off steam, release tension. For writers, it's calling the Muse. Wrapping yourself in Inspiration Bacon and wait in the trap to be eaten.
But sometimes Life overachieves. Gives your already diabetic stress level a fourth helping of getting-fucked-over.
It's hard to write like that. For me. Whether it's money, or job, or just the day to day uncertainty of health, wellbeing, and safety, stress will siphon off my creative source. I can't hear the Muse in all the screaming panic static. I think we both cover our ears and say "fuck this" and check out. Into a movie. A book. Nervous cleaning. Meticulous sorting. Meme hunting. Bed cover hiding. Whatever you gotta do.
Fighting stress is hard. Being so very broke, and not even as broke as you were, which was pretty fucking broke. People playing with your lively hood, with no basic dignity of caring how hard they are going to fuck up your life if you didn't catch them while they thought they were being clever.
Still, I punish myself when I feel like I can't produce. When the weight of the world presses down so hard, it starts to feel like it actually is extracting oil, that beautiful place words come from is hard to reach. Not unlike climax under same circumstances.
Forcing it out hurts, makes it disingenuous.
So, all really one can do is pick an escape that is your Inspiration Bacon, so you can lure your writing Patronus from the ether.
Because in times of great stress, Time already feel lost.

Are You Working?

Writing isn’t all “ass in chair” time. That’s great work, if you can get it. Not having that, how do you justify all that…other time…

Those people with their groups and guilds and monetarily gifted household breadwinners have support, physically and emotionally, when they need Motivation and Inspiration to keep working.

I got to come home three hours early and write one day, and we were worried that little gift would cost us. We know we are operating without Time or Money, regardless of Motivation and Inspiration. So, without Time or Money, one still has to declare one’s identity as a writer.

Don’t do that.

I mean, I hate to sound negative. Artists supporting art and artists are for another time.

It’s almost like Writer is a new order of sub-human, a fucking bum that’s floats in poverty like a river, stabbing at shore until they invade a dock and mooch off of people with real jobs. It doesn’t matter what you do. This is how you will be seen. Some things that have actually happened: I’ve had people laugh in my face and walk away. The ever-present wild animal horn-lock statement, “have you been published.” The ones that hurt the worst came from close to home, if not directly from home. “Why isn’t your book done yet? You must just sit there and stare at the screen. Anyone can write a book.” Direct quote. I’ve had the word “artist” spit at me with such venom because I wouldn’t sell my book instantly. I let someone use one of my stories for their college course. They didn’t have to do their final, and I would have actual feedback. Which I never got. Instead they told me they were meant to be a writer, they had a dream that told them so.

So don’t bother telling anyone. I’m lucky that my spouse has been constantly supportive.

But I only said “writer” once at the place I’m working at. I never mentioned it again, and I don’t talk about it. When I say work, they think I mean laundry, and I don’t have to see the looks on faces of people who built their lives on shore instead of braved the waters.

Now you have to have a Social Identity. For lack of interaction I get in real life, I have to work for it online. One of two things will happen: you either have to prove you have a potential fan base to an agent, or you are going to have to do all the PR work yourself. Remember when writers wrote book after book? Can’t do that anymore. You have to parade. Either an agent or the e-publisher is going to rely on me to sell myself. I gotta be the pimp and the trick. And that takes Time. Also takes Money if the service is any good.

So, you Tweet. Face the Book. Blog, as you can clearly see exhibited here for your consumption. And there’s a million more fucking ways to show off online. Seems like there is a new one every time I log on. It would take another person to add Pintrest, Vine, YouTube Vlog…It’s a full time job to support the identity of a writer online. Who the fuck am I going to pay when I’m considering doing Tarot readings for extra cash?

Somewhere, in the middle of all that shit, you write. Find your process, your voice, style, technique. Craft the frame work, POV, symbolism, realistic dialogue, relatable prose, and new ways to describe the oldest sins. Right?

Sure you have. Now you have research to do. Your character’s career is a plot point. What’s the time frame, because that determines what the building looks like, what the people look and act like, what’s available, how they will react, the historical background…you get the idea. Apply that list to everything in that character’s life, and then to the other character’s. You won’t use it all. You can’t. Because now you have to decide what to leave out for the reader to fill in.

There will be times when you have to not write, when you have to think, brainstorm, turn on some music and Rafiki your way into the world that you see so clearly, so it can come out of your hands as words.

Pens and pencils and notebooks. You have to have them on you. At all times is best. Except if your job doesn’t allow for that kind of thing. But if you can, great. If you can’t…make a note on something somehow or it’s gone.

Sometimes you have to distract yourself. You’ve completed a draft and gone cross-eyed. You’ve just spent ten hours in one seat because all the planets aligned and you hammered out right along with the outline. Looked at so much research that you don’t know anything else right now, but can describe the entire history of…wherever.

Oh, you know you have to be reading, like, everyday, right?

Why isn’t that book done?

Inspiration

Google quotes about inspiration for writers. See you in a week.

Overwhelming…isn’t it?

Inspiration almost goes hand in hand with Motivation. In Venn, the red and blue would make purple out of their halves.

But this isn’t about the philosophical, deep-seated, *need* to write.

This is about getting something to write about.

I honestly have no fucking idea what that’s like for people in groups, or guilds, or retreats, or shit like that. The last time I “brainstormed” there were over twenty people in the room around a table full of bagels.

This is one of those “every moment is a teaching moment” posts. When you’ve pulled back the curtain so far that the fabric ripped, you can’t help but constantly see the Wizard working.

I like to annoy the spouse by walking behind him while he’s watching any hour long drama, and saying “That guy did it.” About half way through I hear “FUCK” from the living room.

So, where do the bereft of friend and foe find Inspiration? Who is my Fairy Godmother that makes my mice dance?

The toys are nice. Big kid toys like dice with pictures on them, magnets with words, journals, and the ubiquitous Writer’s Prompts. I like to warm up with puzzles, if I have the time. Brain Age, chess puzzles, word games. Get your attention away from life and your upper mind working.

There are the tricky questions of who’s your favorite writer, what’s your favorite book, what book influenced you the most. It’s different for everyone. You can’t get any information from that. So don’t bother Googling your Lit Crush and see what they liked. If you do, keep an objective eye.

Books to Film has actually taught me a lot. Some TV series have taught me really good lessons. Some books made the jump to movie and actually improved upon the concept. That’s your candy. There is the “they just destroyed the book I love” movie. Like cockroaches. But what you need to look for are the rare “this was done so much better on film” shows. Sometimes, it’s because the book just didn’t capture what the film could. Sometimes it’s because the book was just limp, and they are the luckiest motherfuckers on the earth to have a network pick it up. Bad movie and bad books are excellent teachers, showing you what to not to do and how not to do it.

Then there is Fan Fiction. Whether what you’ve just read or watched was good or bad, you see a hole, and it must be filled. This is a new, grey area for me. So let’s just say I’m experimenting.

Learning to play an instrument and studying music theory has helped. That one may be obvious to some, but if it’s not, then try it. You will never see patterns the same. Relying on a certain song can help sustain a mood. Sometimes, it’s a lightning strike, and you just see what needs to happen, or feel where the character is at in the story.

Watching how other artists make decisions with their work puts your process in perspective. In a film, if it’s a really good film, you can see all three layers. Where the director made decisions, where the screenplay holds its own in writing, and where the actors carry the material through their entire being.  

I mean, after all this, and that’s scratching the surface, if you still don’t have something to write about…there is always crochet.

Resources

People gravitate, like the stuff of stars they are made of, to what they desire. A middle manager may have a wood workshop, a nurse might have collected as Wilton baking tools and bake her ass off. Cashiers collect historical war books, you get the point.

Even though I spent my youth writing, when I entered the Economic Destiny of the Blue Collar Work Force, I wrote off (haha) the idea that I could write as an adult with any real result. This was my life, as was my mother’s and her mother’s. Work, sleep, whatever you do after your shift, well, that’s just a bonus.

I collected books. At first just a few authors. Then I went through a non-fiction phase and collected those. During that time, a book on the craft of writing had crept in. I don’t know how, or when. But that’s when I started collecting books about writing.

Still, writing was a pipe dream. Work, sleep, clean. Work, sleep, watch a movie. Work, sleep, go to a friend’s house. Work, sleep, read, read, read.

In retrospect, I was writing the whole time. A financial attempt at college, articles and website reviews, little stories, plots and outlines for books. I had never actually stopped using. I just told myself I had. Somehow, I managed to hide it from myself.

Then the bottom fell out. As it did for just about everyone else at the start of the Recession/Working Depression.

Well, this was my chance. I found an angle on a popular theme, and it carved a novel out of my flesh.

From accounting and data, I went to retail. I hadn’t had a standing job for over a decade. But when it comes to work, I’m very Winston Zeddmore, “If there’s a steady paycheck in it, I’ll believe anything you say.” Thanks to whatever or whoever you want to blame, part-time work was all I could get.

A dump truck of shit hit my little life fan, but that’s for another time.

During this time, I had given myself over to Literature as my Lord and Savior.

And I knew no one would help me but me.

So, how do you school yourself in Creative Writing? How do you earn a Faux MFA? How do you teach yourself if you don’t already know?

Those writing books were getting redundant. Like fitness magazines that recommend squats every other month, yoga magazines that feature another wealthy couples unused space into their ashram after the one they visited in India.

Fuck, I’ve only eaten at an actual Indian restaurant once or twice. I’ll probably never make it to India.

I reasoned that there are a few ways to get to the honey ye desire.

Shakespeare. “Classics.” Pulitzer Prize Winners.

That’s where I started.

The public library is okay. Unless you are at a branch office, which has the most recent remodel and “consumer friendly” updates. I used my library card for little else than Great Courses. Those things are expensive. Because they are so fucking good! I already owned a few and bought one for a friend, but the library opened the flood gate of subjects. If I had to recommend just a few for the purpose of this discourse, I would say “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music,” “Reading and Understanding Shakespeare,” and “Books That Have Made History.” (this last title is much longer.) But, please, don’t limit to these three. Great Courses could run a for-profit library on their own.

Chain bookstores are pricey, Amazon isn’t much cheaper, even if you can catch a deal. This is especially true of popular, current classics, and perennial classics. Having constant demand, their price remains constant, too.

However, there is an untapped well, even in the Culture Desert, where people just discard treasure.

Thrift stores.

I’ve gotten more non-fiction, Shakespeare analysis, Cliff Notes, Spark Notes, classic novels, collected works, and textbooks from thrift shops than anywhere else.

Are they dated? Sure. Just like the book of analytical essays on Hamlet that actually had something to say without involving actor’s names. What people throw away. Plato, Hobbes, Erasmus, Faulkner, Hemmingway, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, issues of Psychology Today, on and on.

Where do you go when nobody knows your name?

Your private library, where books are less than a quarter each.

And it’s Paradise.

Wage Slavery

I heard this term a long time ago, before it became the truffles on the entrée of current political rhetoric. It was one of those things that I’ve always lived with, but didn’t have a name for. Like Rape Culture.

So, if for some reason you’re reading this and you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a few definitions found on the Internet.

“Wage slavery refers to a situation where a person’s livelihood depends on wages…especially when the dependence is total and immediate.” (Wiki)

“Wage slavery is the state where you are unable to perceive choices and create courses of action different from the grind of the job.” Whywork.org

And just to set the tone for this post, here is a quote found on Whywork.org. “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” Norman Cousins.

I can’t speak for the politics of wage slavery. But I can tell you what it looks like, what it lives like, what it holds back and what it takes from you.

Just at this company I currently work at, several instances of harassment and insubordination have occurred that will not be responded to. I’m actually terrified to write this, in the thought that someone will make the connection of who I am, even as Nobody, and there goes my job. We all know what happens to people who speak their minds.

No one in my position can afford to speak their mind and lose their job.

I could walk you through a common month as a woman, wife, writer, and clock punching employee. Maybe that’s best, seeing how it all ties together.

Right now, I’m writing this from my last refuge. A nook in my closet/utility/laundry area thing in my human cube apartment. Which I have to be grateful for. It’s this or sitting on the corner with the very nice homeless man we called “Jesus” who was mysteriously picked up by Social Services and never heard from again. Watching it happen sent chills down my spine.

I’ve made this nook pretty badass. A fabric porch chair covered in blankets and some wiggle room, extra laundry baskets covered in blankets and I have an ottoman. I even have a giant plastic skeleton hanging right by me. Hell, I’m going to go to Wal Mart tomorrow and get a hanging jewelry rack for the closet so I can put my headphones, smart phone, and pocket tissues in. I’m sitting under the All and Clorox, so there is a bar above that. It’s going to be downright convenient. Fuck me, I even have a cup holder.

So, let’s start at the first of the month. I feel pretty good. As good as I can feel. But that’s for another day.

I get my first check of the month, husband gets his first two, and we pay bills that aren’t due for days, maybe weeks, because that would overlap with rent, which takes my whole second check. And I haven’t paid this little for rent since the nineties. Car, car insurance, cell phone, and the adjustments debtors have made to accommodate our downgraded lifestyle. I don’t have cable or internet access. I don’t have membership fees, or online subscription services, like Prime, Play, Hulu, or Netflix. So, groceries and gas, the errant soda at work, and that’s it.

Some actual things that have happened; I get yelled at by a customer, which happens often. Because people know they can do that now and get away with it. Except when I go to my boss (who has a Doctorate and 15 years youth on me) and tell them what I need to get this twat out of the line, they have a panic attack. So, I’m getting Retail Flu, misery at both ends. I can’t get my boss to help me, I can’t get this customer what they want. Everyone screams at me until they are tired of it. I tell them I’m going to the bathroom and take headache medicine instead.

Next week, I get yelled at by the other boss, in a manner which I like to call Saddle Up, where they ride your ass for at least an hour, either because they are unhappy, got a bad review, hate poor people, or today just decided to hate you. I’ve seen other people get saddled up, and it’s a lot like prison mentality; I’m so sorry but I’m glad it’s not me. However, this goes on, yelling at me in front of employees and customers for over two hours. Which triggers a panic attack so powerful I’m actually immobilized. What I want to do is leave. If someone had described this to me, I would have thought HR was already involved. But I get to ride it out, shoulders hunched, while what she wants keeps flip-flopping back and forth until I finally get to leave my shift.

Also, if the boss isn’t watching what I’m doing, and isn’t making the only other person watch the queue, I get screamed at for being busy. So I have to make sure and tell my boss to pay attention at work while I am doing work so the work gets done down the line.

A different manager actually dropped the N word. In front of a new black co-worker. When they left, I felt the need to apologize and say that I had never heard that word uttered by another employee here ever, which was the truth. They let it slide and ignored it for the rest of the day. I agonized over it after work. I could have reported it. Maybe I should have. The next day I asked what they wanted to do about it, do you want me to report it, if you want to report it I will back up your statement. The co-worker was way too cool about it, and it hit me that this isn’t unusual. The manager in question was blowharding about how many people he knew and was related to, and this was also true. The co-worker decided to let it go, they needed the pay more than morals. What made me feel sick was that I knew exactly what that felt like.

Right now, I’m waiting for the bills I’ve paid to clear, before I can do anything else with what’s left. What I’ve forgotten at the store, doctor visits, prescriptions, or new clothes for work to replace ones that have worn out.

Now I’m on the second half of the month. My second check is rent. No matter how early it comes, that’s what it gets written for. Nothing but groceries and gas happens on rent weeks.

This is when my medical professional doctorate holding boss decides they are going to tell me that I don’t actually have food allergies. They like to argue, no matter how I try to remain calm, it just seems to piss them off more. I tell them to stop, they say they can just keep going. The only reason it stops is because they’ve become distracted with something else. This is actual textbook harrasement. But I’m too scared to do anything about it, because even though “retaliation” is against the policy, law, whatever, they always manage to find something. Panic attack, bathroom break. I have my phone on me, desperately wanting to walk out, report this, something. The best I can do is ignore them, but they continue through the day, offering to buy me food at some place, offering to buy lunch some other place because “that’s the only thing we can eat together” and making remarks about Easter candy, because “it’s too bad you can’t eat these.”

The month starts over again. This time the manager throws a fit because you are helping someone on the phone too long and not doing your job. Even though it’s an insurance company investigating a customer for fraud. They actually put their hand on the phone, and it’s just a reflex before they make it look like I hung up. Now it’s a zoo around me, because my “peers” are watching my boss go ape shit, me talking on the phone, and covering the phone to try to keep my boss calm. When the call is finally over, I get accused of mishandling the call and not doing my job.

Panic attack. Bathroom break.

I watch the bank account to make sure rent clears before we pay anything else.

I can do nothing about any of this. Because my survival depends on every cent I get. I haven’t gotten to property tax, income tax, vehicle tags, or professional license renewal fees.

I have to take the fits of rage, harassment, being singled out, and customer abuse because if you have a job, you have to hold on for dear life to it.

So, what does this have to do with writing?

Time and Money, dumbass.

Everything plays second fiddle to the J.O.B. I think about writing all day long. A good idea, a scene, a song for the mood, a quote, someone who inspires a character (this also happens in a good way, okay?). After a day with panic attacks, it’s all I can do to come home and lay down. After being the intermediary for managers who do not want to deal with the filth that they perceive our customers to be, and be assured, they do, I am out of social chips and my mind is exhausted. The amount of sleep I get depends on my schedule.

Why does this make me a Poor Angry Writer? What gives me the right to want to write all day and “not contribute to society?” If I didn’t have to worry about getting the necessary education requirements or having health insurance, if my only worry was tapping keys, researching sites, and reading books, what could I possibly contribute?

Well, there is always tutoring and volunteering. My time would be best spent explaining Shakespeare to high school kids, illustrating the metaphors in nursery rhymes for elementary schools kids, or helping middle school kids traverse the lingo in a textbook. Adult literacy. Senior reading groups. College level editing guidance. Or, >gasp<, running a non-profit book store of my own, with a for-profit business on the side. Resumes. Complaint letters. Editorial essays. Wording an obituary. Strategically phrased formal request.

Heaven help us all, writers are fucking useful.

Except when you keep them useless.

Time

Time is the only thing a writer has to forcibly take from others in order to practice their art.

Time is one of the two primary factors that seem to writers an advantage over other writers.

Already I can hear you countering. Of course you need time, you can’t write a book on an hour a day. Or thirty minutes. Or ten. Or five. It takes ass-in-chair time. To get anything of quantity out, just write.

Oh, the uplifting messages about Time. Just do it. No one is stopping you but you.

Well, first-time mother with six months maternity leave and a husband whose job will carry the bills on his salary (not pay, salary) if you could just give up those lattes, recycle a few items, scale down in the level of beauty product you use…you just take that time that freed up and write…I don’t know, whatever you want apparently.

Oh, fully pensioned recent retiree, now is the time.

Or even better, get a divorce and marry someone who can support you while you write.

Because you have a lot of expenses coming. But Money is another matter.

Write lots of short stories, you need those for contests. Get that novel finished, you can’t email an agent with unfinished word count. Writer’s conferences, workshops, classes, webinars. Writer’s groups, reading groups. Laptops, smart phones, apps that help you optimize every second of this time you are so preciously spending. And the editing. Plus reading. Not only your own work, out loud to your many groups is recommended, but as many other authors as you possibly can.

Then there are the rest of us.

Grateful for the hours we can get so the week to week we live on will clear the checking account. Jobs like that pay, and they take a price on your body and mind. Everyone gets to treat you exactly how they please, because you are just grateful to have that two-week paycheck. If only it were a reliable salary.

After you’ve slung fifty pound tubs of leaking shampoo around all day as fast as you can, after you are screamed at by an addict, and then berated by your boss who will neither confront nor comply with said addict, after you pick up the work load of the co-worker with a legitimate medical condition who manages to put together a pretty outfit and somehow “work around” the stack of work she is not expected to finish, you are just irresponsible if you don’t make time to write.

Oh, if you have kids and/or a spouse, any sort of extroverted life, sick parents, or any other life obligation, well, it’s just your own fault for not making time for everything writing demands of writers other than writing.

The only thing standing in the way of you is you.