#WriterLife TAG by @KelsNotChels

My new favorite YouTuber @KelsNotChels posted a video last week starting a #WriterLife tag. Well, I am not a YouTuber (a lot of effort and ego that I do not possess) but I loved all of the questions! As a blogger, I figured why not just answer them here?

1. Write Fuel: What do you eat/drink while writing?

- Relatively recently I started drinking coffee in the morning and found that caffeine (like alcohol) is a double-edged sword for my writing. The right amount and I can produce words like Michael Crichton. Too much and I am so useless I might as well be a monkey with a typewriter. Usually I just drink a lot of tea when I'm writing. Black tea, white tea, herbal tea, I have it all. And I find snacking next to impossible - which might be a good thing.

2. Write Sounds: What do you listen to while writing?

- If I want to get in the Zone I turn on Coffitivity and an 8tracks playlist or a Pandora station specifically crafted for writing ambiance. And then I put my super awesome Bose headphones on and it's like my muse is whispering in my ears.

3. Write Vice: What's your most debilitating distraction?

- Tumblr, no contest. Sometimes I go there to put up a short gif reaction post about my WIP and TWO HOURS LATER emerge with a queue that's three days long.

4. Write Horror: What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you while writing?

- Suddenly realizing that the pain in my left wrist has caught fire and I've ignited my tendinitis again.

5. Write Joy: What's the best thing that's ever happened while writing or how do you celebrate small victories?

- Best thing is something I can't actually talk about because of the Spoilers. I celebrate small victories by waltzing around the kitchen with my cat. No lie. My boy can confirm.

6. Write Crew: Who do you communicate with or not communicate with while writing?

- I put the headphones on so the boy doesn't distract me. But sometimes I talk to my TTT buddies or the fine folk on Twitter for inspiration and/or working out plot problems.

7. Write Secret: What's your writing secret to success or hidden flaw?

- Secret to success: trust the process and don't stop just because it gets hard. (That's not really a secret, but it is a truth that's difficult to accept sometimes.) Oh wait! My real writing secret is that when you don't know what to write, write a dream. Or a flashback. Even if you don't end up keeping it, it always seems easier to churn these out than the narrative storyline. And it can produce useful ideas!

8. Write-spiration: What always makes you productive?

- Music and tea! I am also highly inspired after reading a good book or watching a good movie. And reading about other writers.

9. Write Peeve: What's one thing writers do (or you do) that's annoying?

- Overly descriptive passages that don't serve the story. My biggest pet peeve about myself is my inability to finish something before moving on to the next project. But I'm working on it!

10. Write Words- Share one sentence from a project. Past or present.

 - From Grave of the Goddess:

He felt like an hourglass running out of sand.

(And here's the video. I love writers talking about writing!)

Love is blindness -

I am obsessed with the soundtrack to Baz Luhrman's The Great Gatsby. I knew I would be before it was ever released because Baz is my favorite film director of all time (Moulin Rouge is always number one or two in my favorite movie list and his version of Romeo and Juliet is probably in the top ten) and he uses the most amazing music in his movies. When I saw the first trailer for The Great Gatsby with its opening notes of "No Church in the Wild" by Jay-Z and Kanye West playing over roaring 20s images of flappers and alcohol and fast cars, I almost died. I really think if Fitzgerald were alive today, he would've appreciated this take on his story with its crazy modern music, anachronistic costuming, and constant assault of color and emotion.

Right now, this is my favorite song from the soundtrack. Baz always introduces me to great music I had no idea existed. I love Jack White's version of this song, but I did not know it was a U2 song:

U2


Jack White


To no one's surprise, I like both versions equally. Bono's tragic, melodramatic version just as well as Jack's charged, primal screaming.

Vacation and Preoccupation

The boy and I have been vacationing down in Metro DC for the past five days. (We've only got a couple left - boo, hiss.) It's nice to relax, of course, and we've had a lot of good food and drink and company already. We've also been to tour Gettysburg, gone through some Smithsonians, had an afternoon in Leesburg... All fun. All good.

I should sound more enthusiastic, but I woke up this morning with a sore throat and cramps, so I'm not exactly in love with my life at the moment.

Every time I'm down here visiting my family, I always find myself sinking into a preoccupation with my future and how to turn myself into the person I want to be. The stupid thing is that the things I am preoccupied with are materialistic and image-heavy. Like I want to present a more polished version of myself to the world - makeup and nice clothes and an impeccably clean apartment. I want to own nice things that make me happy to look at them. Or thinking about how much I should maintain a schedule of calling my relatives once a week, writing to my faraway friends once a month, getting together a list of things the boy and I should go and do before we get old or have kids.

I can do all these things. I keep trying. I keep doing them in half-measures. These days everyone is hung up on adult ADD and kids who can't concentrate enough to learn how to read, but I feel like I have life ADD. I can never finish the things I start. I need to find more of a sense of satisfaction in the END rather than the BEGINNING. How do I do this?

...last and final random thought relates to my perpetual love of music. New music. I need to listen to more. If I get with the program and start blogging more, I'll share more music too.


This whole post perfectly reflects the scattered mundanity of my thoughts these days. But you know? I love it. I love the mundane. I delight in my own mediocrity. Screw you, Salieri, you should be celebrating being on the sidelines. There's a lot less pressure.

Diamonds and Rust

"Now you're telling me you're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It's all come back too clearly
Yes, I loved you dearly
And if you're offering me diamonds and rust
I've already paid."
- Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez

Wish I'd had my notebook with me last night. D dragged me to a friend's party in RI. I say dragged because I have never been enthusiastic about parties. I've been rather hung up on how introverted I am lately -- for good reason, I think -- but in no way is it clearer how horrible it can be than when I am at a party. The stupid thing is that it seems completely illogical. I love being with the people I know who are there. I always have a good time with them. I'd like to spend more time with them. But whenever I'm at a party everything is completely overwhelming for me.

Last night was particularly bad for other circumstantial reasons. I've been struggling with slipping back into depression lately, and then with the end of this week came the dissolution of a years-long friendship that I thought was going to last forever. Can't say I've been feeling particularly great lately. Understatement of the year implied. D and I already planned to be going to this party though, and even though it was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do, I agreed to go. Better to get out of the house etc.

After stifling a potential panic attack or two beforehand, we get there. Lot of people. Small space. But there are people I know. So far everything is okay. I drink one beer. I drink most of another. By this point I'm starting to feel a little like maybe things are not so okay again. Hard liquor might help so D procures me a rum and coke. Halfway into that, I'm perched on the couch watching everyone else be happy and crazy, and all I can think is Fuck, what is so wrong with me that I can't just relax and enjoy this? I'm on tenterhooks. I feel like the ceiling is going to fall in. My nerve system is buzzing - not in a good way.

But it was at that point that a mutual friend came over with a suggestion that made me get up off the couch. Instant connection. I guess that's all it takes. I needed to throw my mind in some direction that still held a measure of passion, and talking about music with a fellow enthusiast always does it for me. Reminds me of talking to my brother.

So now it's the morning after. I had a good time. I'm glad I went. Much better than the alternative of staying at home on the verge of another breakdown. (Fucking Friday night was one of the worst nights of my life.) And D and I have plans for today too.

I think I can keep doing this. Reaching out. I love my melancholy, but I don't want to drown in it. I'm not Sara Teasdale. I'm not Virginia Woolf. I really don't want to be Sylvia Plath. I just want their spirits.

Meanwhile, I'm still sifting through the chaos and heartbreak.

Somebody That I Used To Know

"You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness - like resignation to the end, always the end..."
"Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye

I want to journal in earnest now. My spinning thoughts drive me out of bed. My grasping hands keep finding the lifelines set out long ago by all the women who came before me. The poetess locked in her tower. The novelist who feels damned by her own skin. Always searching, never finding. We're all locked into this endless dance with ourselves. Our lives disintegrate around us and all we can do is sit in the middle of the mess with a pen and paper, writing and writing and writing. Revolving around the moment of truth in which all of it ceases to matter.

I would say that my body is here, and here I must be, but it isn't true. I am in pursuit of time-events-spaces that will bring me back to this place. But I am sitting in the far corner of my own forever. Watching my life spin out. Scrawling across my chalkboards, and then simply erasing them again. Damn these inchoate thoughts.

But here I am. Tied to these stars. Seeking out my perfect moments with the passion of an addict.

I haven't thought of that in so long. Perfect moments. Perfect clarity. Perfect emotion. Perfect stillness. These things that used to mean everything to me, these things which haven't existed for me in ages. The last perfect moment I found came in the strength of shaking climax. The long, slow breath of shimmering existence. Something that teeters on the edge of not quite sanity. Putting my hand flat against a flannel pillowcase and watching my fingers come back to life.

I'm trying to crawl back. I'm trying to stand up. Smothered by thoughts of merciless fate.

What else can I do but apologize for all this repetition? These things happen. Time is cyclical and we're all fighting a losing battle.

He's in the best-selling show.

Okay.

Everyone knows I love David Bowie. And I do. Love him. I mean, he's still number one on my "celebs I'd do" list despite the age difference. It's more than just lust though. I think the man is a genius - even when he's denied it. He KNOWS music. He knows pop before it's pop. He has always had some weird prescient knowledge of what would describe a decade best during that decade.

So I naturally own nearly all of the music he's ever put out under his name. I have several books written about him. Photos of him and his wife and various cohorts over the ages take up a healthy portion of my harddrive.

(I feel the need to add that, no, I am not some addled fan who thinks The Bowie is the be-all end-all of my life. I just worship him for what he is. A brilliant pop-rock musician that figured in a great number of my formative years for figuring out my life.)

This evening, I decided to finally upload all of those wonderful albums to my laptop. (I know, how have I never done this?) In doing so, I was reminded of another great love of my life that I have not paid nearly enough attention to lately - letter-writing.

Believe me, these things are actually related.

When I was a teenager, we moved from Virginia to New York and I left behind a friend who at the time was a very good friend but who managed to become my very best friend. For whatever reason, we started writing letters to each other. Becoming closer and closer as those pieces of paper crawled up and down the east coast to each other. When I discovered David Bowie at fifteen, she was the first person I shared him with. It became a mutual infatuation and only served to strengthen our bond.

So the other thing I've been doing this evening if going through all those letters we used to send each other. And wishing with all my heart that we had never stopped writing them. (Our words petered out - not entirely but mostly - sometime while we were both in college.) And, honestly, is there anything more glorious than two teenagers pouring out their hearts to each other?

The written word has always been my choice way to communicate. (See my first relationship which was based almost entirely on IM conversations.) And letter writing is so personal. The ink and paper and waiting for the postal worker to come... It is glorious. And gloriously ignored these days. And perhaps destined to die entirely seeing as how underfunded the USPS is about to be! All I can say is, there is nothing quite like getting a letter in the mail. Try it and see. You'll make someone's day, if not week or month.

I have other things to report on, but this seems sufficient for now. I leave you with my favorite Bowie song.

Love is a bird..

I imagine that if Melantha made a music video, she might look like this.



For those of you who don't know who Melantha is, she's the Scerae (i.e. a goddess) of Chaos and Insanity in a fantasy story that M and I wrote together. She is known as the Black Flower, born of the Cruel Shard, and she is the best thing I have ever written.

Here's how she first appeared:

Theme Songs

WARNING: This post has music coming out of every orifice.

I was browsing through the latest posts on this silly girly website I like to look at (The Frisky), and saw one where they were discussing their personal "theme songs." Which obviously got me to thinking. I create theme songs like it's my job. I have them for myself, my friends, my relationships, my novels, my characters, situations or time periods in my life... Pretty much everything.

So I thought I'd share a few. Because why the hell not? If you'd like specific explanations for why - then you'll have to comment and ask.

Theme Song for My Life: Sweetness Follows by R.E.M.



Theme Song from Last Summer: Lovegame by Lady Gaga



Theme Song for D: Take It Easy by the Eagles



Theme Song for M: Postcards from Italy by Beirut



Theme Song for Rising: One Day from Pirates of the Caribbean III



Theme Song for Ariana (from Face the Flames): I Know by Jude -- yeah, I've got ones for almost every character from this book.



Theme Song for A Hunter's Fire: Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac



Theme Song for Creatures of the Wind: Mystic's Dream by Loreena Mckennitt (also this music video is awesome and I don't even play WoW)



Theme Song for My Grandparents: Memories of You by Benny Goodman



Theme Song for My Father: Handel's Messiah



Theme Song for My Mother: The Offbeat of Avenues by the Manhattan Transfer



Theme Song for My Brother: Around the World by Daft Punk



And I'd like to know if other people do this or if I'm just insane like that.

An Evening of Chamber Music

There is something about the sound of a cello that goes to the very depths of me.

This evening, we had "an evening of chamber music". Some incredible musicians performed: Sima Kustanovich, an utterly fabulous pianist who I have seen perform before and am blown away by every time I see her again; Julian Milkis, a clarinetist who is apparently the only clarinet student of Benny Goodman (and incredibly accomplished in his own right - his bio took up half the program!); and Borislav Strulev, a Russian cellist with amazing stage presence.

They played some wonderful pieces by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Paquito D'Rivera, Nino Rota, Morton Gould, and Astor Piazzolla. The Mendelssohn was probably my favorite (just piano and clarinet, a piece Felix supposedly wrote at age 16), but the piece they did for the encore nearly made me cry. Didn't quite catch name or composer...

I think I have been waiting for something like this concert all year. It reminded me suddenly why my life has meaning - and where I derive such a thing. How can one not live and love and enjoy life when there are such beautiful things to experience?

I'm glad I went.