Plans and a late-breaking Insecure Writer message!

I promised you that this would be a new day on Jan Morrison, This Crazy Writing Life.  I want to share with you some ideas for my next steps - make a new calendar of deadlines. Or should I call them lifelines? I want to decide what days I'm going to post on this blog and whether I'm going to have memes or topics for those days.
I will post on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays - except for during April in which I will blog every day as part of the A-Z Challenge!  Tuesdays will be my day to focus on my own writing process, on Thursdays I will go back to my Tips from the Tops (where I glean my writing sources for good writing tips) and Saturdays will be on the external life of a writer - anything goes!

So, without further ado, here is my first Tuesday post of the new regime:

Getting my manuscript done and dusted - off to the contest with its package of four page synopsis and a small essay on why I was entering the particular award competition happened on March 1st. Since then I've done nothing on True or any other wip. Here are my thoughts about next plans:

Project: True

• I will finish my one-page synopsis of True - by March 11
• I will write four query letters - each geared to the agents I've researched - by March 14th
• I will send off four packages to four agents - My March 18
• I will send one to two packages a month until I hear back from someone. These other packages will be to either agents in the States or to Canadian publishers.

Project The Rock Walker

• I will begin my revision process with TRW by writing a Hero's Journey Synopsis - by April 1st.
• Using the above as my template I will begin a big picture revision of TRW - I will continue to revise going through all the steps - structure, clarity, setting, characters, dialogue, themes, rhythm, language - until I have something to send to the person who edits for me - finish by June 1st
• When I get it back I will incorporate changes
• I will create query packages for publishers that I've researched - synopsis, bio, letter, etc...because this is a mystery I will probably avoid trying for an agent. - by July 1st

There - this seems good. I need to do this quite often, so I can see where I really am and not fantasize! Ultimately True is finished - I feel it down to my bones - oh, I know there will be further edits but it is done to the best of my current ability. I feel my mind going towards TRW and getting excited - I have learned one or two things over the last effort - I like revising - I do not like synopsis writing but I can see how wonderful a tool it is - even if done late - in order to help the revision process.

How do you keep yourself on track - the writing track that is?

Oh Oh - I forgot that this was Insecure Writers Support Group day. ARGGGH! First one I've missed. I offer this for any who wander by looking for it - the best way to treat insecurity (for me) is to write through it. My image is that of holding a candle and walking a long and sometimes treacherous, sometimes boring, sometimes beautiful path. I have to keep the candle lit and move forward. I will meet inner and outer demons on the path - those that want to smother my candle with too much attention - those that want to blow the flame out because of insecurity or jealousy - those who will walk with me for a ways and encourage my journey. I must not lose my intention. I must not listen to the naysayers - those who nay say out of either fear or envy. I must not listen to those who spew hyperbole either - too much of that and I forget what I am doing. When the going gets tough I remember my dad and recall that in those instances 'the tough get going'. When the landscape is boring and seems endless (the middle of the wip?) I remember to pay attention with greater diligence - that nothing is boring when I am awake. I know I will get to the end of this path and I treasure the travel as much if not more than the destination. Much love to you all wherever you are on your path - protect your flame with all your heart!

Insecure Writers' Support Group and The Writers' Prayer

Don't you feel all fresh and vigorous after your holiday? You, you over there with kitty litter in your hair? You been sleeping off a thousand shortbread cookies and couldn't stumble to your bed? You watched Bad Santa and thought the main character had some redeeming factors? You came off your sugar high, your post-apocalyptic, I can manage both my creative life, my $ life, my dysfunctional home life and the Boxing Day sales? Is that an ereader sitting underneath your plastic 'seasonal' tree and you too exhausted to figure out how to download fifty thousand FREE books? 


Did you open up your current wip file and have a look at what you were feverish about before Xmas and peruse it? Did it look like codswaddle to you? Did you have to look up codswaddle? Do you wish you could write a whole NEW book based on the word 'codswaddle'? 


Well then, come on in and sit down. The meeting's about to begin.
My name is Jan and I'm a freaked-out writer. I'm terrified to tell my pelvic affiliate that I have wasted the last twelve years of my life pursuing an empty meaningless dream. 

I cannot learn to play the accordion! 

Oh, the other one...well, I'm not giving up that one yet. I still have some fight in me about being a writer. I still BELIEEEEEEEVE! Jimmy Swaggert just came over and thucked me on the forehead. NO, I said THucked me - you know - with the heel of his hand. And now I'm lying on the floor, stars spinning in a slow constellation above me while I type out these words. 


That reminds me. When I was in grade 9 I learned to type in typing class with Mr. Cunningham. He hated me. Why? Because I would only learn to TYPE, not to justify, not to set up a proper business letter - NO - only to type words because I was going to be a WRITER not a secretary. It was 1966 or something like that. I got a 50 which I proudly took home to my parents. "See, I'm a writer - I can type. I'm not going to be a secretary so don't even think about that." No worries, said my parents, wouldn't even consider it. Thought you were going to be a veterinarian? I huffed out of the living room, my head held high.


And that my dear fellow sufferers is the truth. The truth is what I write. Day in and day out. So, without moving from wherever you are, join in the Writers' Prayer.

Oh Generic Entity, please look upon me, your humble servant in something or rather and grant me your boon. (what is a boon? oh never mind, you know, you're the great generic entity) Grant me the resilience to withstand the slings and arrows of those who would wish me to do other than I would wish me to do - that is get a real job and quit going on and on about being a writer. Give onto me the ability to sit down and write in a clear and engaging style after playing four hundred and thirty-nine games of Frozen Bubbles. Please allow me to continue in my wondrous deluded state and produce reams of prose so stunning as to...well, stun people, especially that guy from my old high school days who thinks he's so smart just because he's had twelve books published. Thank you in advance...and speaking of advance let my advance rain down upon my humble head in great swarths of luminous moolah.

Feel free to modify to suit your own needs. 
See you at next month's meeting of The Insecure Writer's Support Group! (go to link for more members)

Insecure Writers' Support Group - A Call to Arms!

Hi, my name is Jan and I'm an insecure writer.
To meet other members of our group go to Alex's site - he has the clubhouse.

I just tried doing a riff off of the 12 step program. I'm a big believer in AA and think it is an effective program. Heck, I know it is. My dad was a member for the last 19 years of his life - I went to his first meeting with him. But I couldn't do it. Why? Because writing isn't a disease - it is a cure.
The insecurity is a problem though. The lack of confidence to boldly move into our writing life - to truly engage with our skills, talent, and intention as writers - that's a problem. I don't want to be an insecure writer. Neither do I want to be a secure one - a smug, self-satisfied one. Why? Because I think they are generally just insecure ones in disguise. I don't want to be a tortured starving artist, or an ascetic to any cause. I want to be a journeyman, a working writer, a dependable craftsperson of the word. I want people to pick-up my books and sigh knowing that they are guaranteed a good read. Like John Irving, Graham Greene and Margaret Drabble.
Insecurity is a disease. It eats away at the soul and erodes all that is good in a writer. It causes us to second-guess every aspect of our writing and to (if given rein) encourage us to be 'safe' writers of bland missives, or spectacularly outrageous writers of unreadable prose. It causes us to keep our novels in drawers instead of in the postal system looking for a new home. It causes us to stutter when folks ask us what we're up to - not wanting the focus of their attention on our work. Or it causes us to clamber after false attention and feed our ego not our craft. Down with this insecurity I say. Let us instead put our energy into working our craft and being proud of where that brings us, of supporting fellow writers and encouraging emerging ones. Let us be proud to use words to brighten up the dark places in the world, to lighten the load of seriousness, or illuminate  ignorance. I call on all my fellow writers to put down the cloak of insecurity and pick up their pens and go forth into the fray!

Insecure Writers' Day - where we get to celebrate our nervous nelly ways!

Greetings All - Today is Insecure Writers' Day - the first Wednesday of every month - and it is a trial for me this time. Why? You all ask in loud voices. Because I said so. No, that's wrong. Because I finished a HUGE ASS edit yesterday and I'm not feeling all that insecure. Oh, I'm sure something will rise up and slap me down any minute now - but RIGHT NOW I feel good. Nonetheless, I'll keep writing and find my insecurity to parade before y'all.

Revising is fraught with insecurity. If you are like me, and for the sake of my ease I'm going to pretend you are all identical, then you write your first draft as if no one was ever going to read it - including yourself. It is a glorious woolly mess  of a thing - with dangling story lines, characters that are tall and manly in one chapter and short and nervous in the next, and lots of shiny metaphors that have nothing to do with anything. So - revising can be a painful exercise of saying to oneself, over and over again, 'what was I thinking?' and 'I must be a complete moron' and 'who wrote this shite?' and so on...

Hopefully within that process, the woolly mess becomes a decent fitted garment with sleeves that match and a real collar - not just a cheap-way out boat neck. No! That's knitting. Sorry. Hopefully your woolly mess will become a coherent story with tension and structure, excellent dialogue and an ending! That would be great.
I think I got there yesterday. Oh, I have lots to still fret over. Just because I pared it down and got rid of all the tangential story lines doesn't mean it is riveting prose just yet. But I feel like I'm getting close. Just a few more weeks and maybe it will be ready to face the world.

Here's where I can find my insecurity - dough-land, moolah, the buck stops here, the bottom line, living in the red - you get the picture. Why I start sounding like Sam Spade when I talk economics I don't know - but there ya go. I get insecure because I spend a lot of time that I could be hustling up clients and charging them for my services - writing. And so far that writing has brought me in exactly nothing in the form of currency. Hold on! Not true! In university (not so long ago in my case as I'm living my life backwards) I won two poetry prizes and made about $300 overall. Not bad. And in my other writing - for govt. and so forth - I sometimes make ridiculous amounts of money. But no - doesn't count as we are going down the tubes NOW and I'm definitely fiddling while Rome burns.

There! You happy now! I found my insecure spot. Now I'm going to work. At my real work. Where I do something that people give me money for. Bye now.
I'm going to hop over to Alex's and see how the rest of the Insecure Writers are doing. Why don't you hop over there with me? Or not. Maybe you don't want to hang out with me cuz I'm a loser but I was just asking. Never mind. See you around. Maybe. Or not. Whatever.

Revising and the insecure writer

My NaBlo posts are in the form of letters to my journal about my revision process. Along the way, I'll include Home-Made Revision Workshop posts, and my Friday Challenges..

Dear Journal,
Hi, my name is Jan and I'm an insecure writer. Oh, I know you don't believe me. You think I'm just trying to fit in with the new in-crowd, but you're wrong. I am insecure at writing and perhaps even more with revising. You see, I believe that revising separates the sheep from the goats (hi Elspeth's sheep!!!). I don't know if a writer is a sheep or a goat but today, of all days, insecure writers' day, I'm saying that a writer is a goat and not a sheep. Why? Well because goats eat anything and live off of it. Same as writers. Exactly. Why today, just today, dear journal, I ate an old tire, some sh*t (don't ask, won't tell), and my bank statement. Why? You may well ask. The tire is obvious for you alert journals, the second item I've already said I won't comment on, and the bank statement - that was dessert. If I wasn't a writer and a reviser I might have said that it was desert, but that would be wrong. Why would a bank statement be a big sandy hot area with a cartoon guy crawling across it, saying in balloon speak "water...water...just a bit of water..."?  Some other reasons that writers are goats and not sheep. We smell. It's true. I know we don't like to admit it but when we are deep in revisions, showers are just another pesky thought. Plus we eat popcorn with garlicky oil on it (no - not butter, we're on a diet!) and parmesan with that nice old sock odour. And the third reason we're like goats and not like sheep is that we can't sleep. We're always jumping around on mountains trying to find something, anything, to write about. If we were sheep we'd count ourselves and sleep. I can't sleep - that's why I'm writing this in my journal pretending it is Wednesday - oh - it is almost Wednesday - just 13 more minutes and it will be - then I can put the compost out and maybe go to sleep. I might have a cigarette. On the deck, in the driving cold rain. That would make me feel like a writer and I would definitely smell like a goat. Then I couldn't go to sleep and I could work on fleshing out my main character in the revision I'm doing. Good idea. By the way, Mari and Tartlette, I'm not blunking or drogging or any one of those elvish words. I'm just really really really tired. Because I'm a goat, an insecure writing, revising goat and baaaaaah (oh come on - I heard four goats today and that is just how they sound - the sheep copied them - they ARE sheep ya know).
Sometimes when people ask me what I'm "up to" (very suspiciously I might add) I will tell them I'm a writer and go blah blah blahing about 'what I'm working on' and how hard it is to find 'real publishers' these days. But don't kid yourself, journal, I'm still being insecure when I do that. Yes, I am. I'm blowing a lot of hot air. The thing is that when I'm finally a 'published writer' I won't ever say that. I'll slip it in real cool. "Yes, I'm working on my twelfth book. Uh...well only one's been published, but I AM working on my twelfth book. I'll be so secure. Then every first Wednesday of every month I'll write a Secure Writers' Post. Ha! OK, I'm going out on the deck to smoke now. See you tomorrow, I mean today.