For the last two hours I haven’t accomplished anything. I want to. I do. But my eyes are tired and my brain is fried. By the end of last week, I knew burn out was creeping in. To avoid the possibility, this past weekend I didn’t write, work on my paint project (as I planned to do), or fiddle with my guitar.
Even though I did nothing, my mind was working overtime. Thinking about stories, book proposals, impressionist paintings, Spanish folklore, my business, and on and on. I don’t know how to shut off my brain. Usually I don’t mind, but there are times - like today - where I literally can’t see straight.
I’d go for a walk, but it’s raining. I’d go shopping, but that isn’t an activity I enjoy.
My stress relievers (reading, writing, painting, gutiar playing) are the cause of my stress. What’s this poor little Puerto Rican chic to do? Please don’t suggest that I lay down and just relax. Relaxing stresses me the frakk out.
It has taken me 34.75 years to notice. This surprises me since I am usually atune to the feelings of others. That’s emphathy. My first grade teacher taught me that. I didn’t learn the lesson right away. I figure it was in the second grade when I started to put the pieces together. It’s such an easy concept. Simply put yourself in the position of the person you are judging. It’s difficult to take a harsh stance against another’s actions when you slip into their shoes.
So I don’t know how I missed it, but I sure did.
Though I did notice that the word nigger is used in the classics (Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird), I never, until today, thought about how the black kids in my classes felt reading books where the black characters were referred to as a nigger. This struck me today while reading Of Mice and Men. A female character threatens a black one. She uses the word nigger and states that one word from her and the next day he’d find himself hanging from a tree. Wow. Just typing that brought tears to my eyes.
I wish this post had a point, but it doesn’t. It’s a thought that hasn’t left my mind all morning.
A few times I’ve blogged about the writer’s responsibility to readers. Some writers produce a storyline for their own pleasure and hope that it will sell. Others will follow through on a storyline line only if they believe it will be marketable. Neither position is right or wrong. In the end, it’s up to the writer to decide.
Well, as Erika reminded me, somebody forgot to tell Nurse Annie Wilkes from Misery that as a reader her needs come at a distant second to the author’s vision. Here’s the plot as described in Wiki:
Nurse Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) saves the life of novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan) after a car accident brought on by a severe blizzard. Wilkes, an obsessive fan of Sheldon’s “Misery” romance series, takes him home and serves as his caretaker. Annie turns out to be severely mentally disturbed (very possibly suffering from erotomania), and she prevents him from leaving or contacting the rest of the world.
Once Annie finds out he kills Misery Chastain, the series’ namesake, in his latest published book, she flies into a rage and nearly kills him. She also coldly tells him that she never called the doctors, Paul’s agent or his daughter, as she’d previously said she’d done. After leaving for a few days, she forces him to burn the manuscript he had carried with him and write a new “Misery” story, Misery’s Return, in which Misery is somehow brought back to life.
Now, I doubt that we’ll come across readers that will go through that extent, but it is important to point out that readers have a invested interest in characters they have fallen in love with. And readers can get cranky. Believe me, I get crayon mail all the time from readers who get upset over a nonfiction article I wrote. I usually ignore the emails but some are too funny to ignore. Especially the ones that read YOU SUCK. But my favorite one is DIE BITCH DIE! Yes, I’ve received that one more than once. The crayon mail is always written in all caps, red letters, and the biggest font the reader’s email account allows.
Despite some my readers personal attacks, I don’t take the emails personally. I realize that their frustration has nothing to do with me, but rather the market(my nonfiction writing directly relates to the economy). Because I’ve been writing for so long and understand the demographics of my readers, I know which topics will hit a nerve. I craft my words carefully so that my readers will grasp the intent of the article. Some will. Some won’t.
So it seems that no matter how you write. For yourself first and readers second or visa versa, there will always be a unhappy readers who thought you could do much better.
Aaron over at Copious Notes blogged about his Kindle experience. In his post, he wrote, “Anyone who discounts it without first trying it has no grounds for their opinions.”Okay, that’s fair. I won’t give my opinion on the reader’s Kindle experience. I’m sure it’s a fabulous one.But a thought did pop in my mind. Though the Kindle or other readers are a long way off - if they ever get near - to killing off the hard and soft cover books, I wonder how writers will feel if their books are never produced in published form. Sure the writers who haven’t been born yet could care less, but what about us oldies? You know, writers over twenty. Would you rather have your readers carry a book in their hands? Or in a reader such as Kindle? Or may be it doesn’t matter to you as long as your book is read and enjoyed by others.Though I’m sure I’ll adapt to whatever the industry standard may be in the future, I’m glad that I have a commercially published book that is sitting on library and bookstores shelves, that there are people riding the subway, in their living rooms, or on a flight and have a published copy of my book in hand. As a writer, I doubt that the ability to download my books will come near the feeling I had when I held my book in my hands.
Out of thousands of words in a novel, few paragraphs can stand on their own. It’s these paragraphs that everyone can relate to. It’s these paragraphs that take an old story and give it new life. It’s these paragraphs that separate authors from writers.
In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye: “Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe. There is no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover’s inward eye.”
Toni Morrison is a true artist. It’s her novels that inspire me to write. It’s her novels that weaken my knees. It’s her novels that stop me in my tracks for fear that I will fail miserably.
Where I would simply write:
The Catholic Irishman didn’t notice the little black girl.
Toni Morrison writes in The Bluest Eye:
He does not see her. Because for him there is nothing to see. How can a 52 year old white immigrant storekeeper with the taste of potatoes and beer in his mouth, his mind honed on the dough-eyed Virgin Mary, his sensibilities blunted by a permanent awareness of loss, see a little black girl?
Many people ask me how I have time for so many hobbies. Well, let me say that I don’t consider writing a hobby, but the painting and music I do.
Whenever I write lyrics or a melody, I do so with a character in mind. Some of the lyrics will make it into the final book and others are not intended to ever make the cut. Rather, the lyrics or melody act as character development exercise. It’s information that the reader doesn’t need to know to understand the story, but information I need to write the story.
Until last week, I didn’t incorporate my painting into my writing. But my recent At the Podium post with JK Rowling changed all that. In the video embedded in the JK Rowling post, we see that she drew sketches of The Harry Potter characters. This gave me the incentive to create paintings of the characters or settings in my book.
What you see in the above picture is the beginning stages of a painting for a guitar that makes its presence throughout my book. It’s not close to ready, but I decided to showcase the piece because the final product will have lyrics that will appear in the book. As a result, I won’t post the finished painting until the book finds a home with a publisher.But I thought it would be neat to show everyone how I incorporate my hobbies and my passion.
Writing in many ways is similar to painting. The first draft of a novel has many kinks. And the beginning stages of a painting always looks like a kindergartener’s work. Each activity needs to be nurtured. Patience is key. I’m learning that lesson slowly.
This morning I dedicated a few hours to writing lyrics. On loop was Jeff Buckley’s version of Hallelujah. I found inspiration in the simplicity of the words. I knocked out a draft for two songs. Tonight I’ll fool around with the melody.
What I find interesting is that it takes me the same amount of time – sometimes more - to write one song as it does a whole chapter for my novel.
