Life Worth

I have a tendency, like many, to base my self-worth up on how much approval I get.  In high school and college I did a lot of theater, and the more applause I got, the cooler I felt.  I like to sing as well and I even had a (short) stint for a few years of writing angsty, clever songs on my guitar.  Some people gave me a lot of positive feedback and I reveled in their praise.  I felt very worthwhile and therefore valued myself more.

After a point I always seem to move on to a new interest.  And I usually set out upon my new road to discovery with a lot of intentions.  I want to excel at what I do.  I want to love doing it.  And, right up there at the top, I want people to pour praise on me.  I want to have fans.

My newest creative endeavor (if you can call the last six years 'new') is writing.  I have now written four novels (with varying skill) and gone through the submission process three times.  It's so much harder than auditioning for a show, so so much harder.  An obvious difference is that you spend months prepping and writing a novel and query letter only to wait another interminable amount of time to be rejected, but I think there are other reasons, reasons I need to admit to myself, things I personally struggle with.  For instance, maybe I just had more natural talent back during my performing days.  Maybe I'm not as good a writer as I was an actress (and I have no illusions about my talents as an actress, I assure you).  And maybe I care more about writing than I did acting.  In fact, I'm almost positive this is the case.

I may have been seeking to charm people since the third grade when I played Rumpelstiltskin in our class play but I've loved reading constantly, all-consumingly since I first learned to do it.  Reading (notice, I don't claim writing) is my first love, my first passion.  And only recently have I striven to double that joy by creating my own stories.  It is the most enjoyable (and difficult) quest I've ever embarked upon.

Acting is a heady, self-gratifying thing.  Actors can kid themselves all they want about their lofty ambitions to help people with their art, but that was never it for me.  I knew I liked applause and have never pretended otherwise.  Sure, you have to practice and memorize and learn choreography and blocking and all that, but your fellow actors are watching you while you do it, your director is focusing their full attention on you, so that audience exists even before tickets are sold and the house is full (or not so full).

I did comedy improv with a group of very talented individuals for a little while in college as well and I hated it.  Do you know why?  Because during rehearsal everyone was so intent on getting their own laughs that no one laughed at each other's jokes.  It was all the performing with none of the ease.  And I'm lazy; I didn't want to have to work without praise so that I could perform for praise.  I wanted it the whole time.

Hence my current stumbling block.  Not only is there no cheering section while I write my books (besides my very very supportive husband), at the finish not only do I not have a screaming fan base, I have a stomach full of nervousness and doubt.  It's about as opposite of performing in a show as you can get.  And the work which I've put into each book (which proves I love it- I'm telling you I'm normally really lazy) is important only to me (and, once again, my fabulously supportive husband).  Agents don't care about how much work you've put in, they care if they can sell it or not.

I'm trying to reconcile what I'm learning about writing and seeking to be published with my life-view and sense of self worth.  Was my gluttony for laughs and applause a great thing back in college when I got them?  No.  But I did get them, so I wasn't really in danger of becoming despondent from the lack.  But this is different.  I love to write.  I must keep doing it.  And I must figure out a way to still value myself, even if no one ever wants to publish me, even after I write twenty books (that's the most depressing thing I've ever written).

The AH Condition

Let's not make any bones about it, I'm not the most unique person in the world.  Like, I like Harry Potter and Jane Austen.  And apple pie.  And I don't care if the place I eat is a chain or not.  I'm not too proud to shop at Target when I need to.  And I love babies.  I have my eccentricities and my share of weirdisms, but for the most part, I'm just your average gal.
         One of the things that I share with many other American chicks is my total disdain for Anne Hathaway.  She just bugs me.  She bugs you too probably, so I'm sure you relate.  We don't really need to go into the many reasons why AH is annoying to watch, there's a good deal og blogspace dedicated to that already, but I will point out a few.  One, Anne tries too hard; her acting is painful to watch because she wants to convince us so badly that she's s good actress.  Two, she looks like a drawing of a person instead of a real person.  And three, Anne seems really nervous in interviews, like she's pretending to be someone she's not.
        "Awww, poor Anne," some of you say.  "Why is everyone so down on that poor sweet girlie girl?"*  If the aforementioned reasons don't resonate with you, I have one word for you.  "Passengers."  See it.  Or, rather, don't.  It's so terrible it might scar you for life.  Good old AH really delivers in "Passengers," if by 'delivers' you mean like a pizza guy ringing your doorbell and then, when you open the door, opening the box and smashing the whole pizza right into your face.  Get it?
        Please tell me why Cam is spending so much time bashing AH right now?  That's probably what you're asking right now, right?  I'll tell you.  I have come to realize that I am afflicted sometimes with what I call the AH Condition.  Sounds serious, right?  And medical?  I assure you, it is very serious.  But not so medical, unless by medical you mean when a pizza guy comes to your door and... well, you get the picture.
        The AH Condition is a very hard thing to shake.  Its symptoms are the very problems I have with Anne Hathaway, except it has to do with the way you write.  For example: as an AH Condition sufferer I often try too hard in my writing, specifically if what I am writing is short and needs to pack a punch. I seem over-eager to sound current, hip.  Also, I may sometimes write characters as cartoon-like generalizations instead of real people.  lastly, and most deadly, I can get really nervous as I write, picking over every word and phrase, obsessed with looking legit.
        All three of these sins are as good as a death sentence in the writing world and all three are pretty hard to stop doing once someone has become afflicted.  And the AH Condition is contagious, mostly after reading writing blogs/forums or obsessing too long over what made "The Hunger Games" so good.  Basically, getting too caught up in what other people are doing.  Something I do too often.
        Is there a cure for AH Condition? you might ask.  I don't know.  Yes?  I have had some success, I've come up with a few tricks, for pulling back and blocking out the clamor of voices as I write.  The voices that tell me that I have to deliver more, more, more.  They warn me that I'm not good enough, that I'm doomed to fail, and constantly urge me to try to be like someone else so I'll be more appealing.  My little tricks do a modest job at shutting those voices up for a little while.  Wanna know what they are?

1.  Having a Pandora station full of carefully picked songs that I identify so much with that while that station is playing I can instantly focus and get into my good writing groove.  (My station- Jose Gonzales, for those who are wondering- doesn't do the trick 100% of the time, but it's almost always successful.)

2.  Having enough self-control to walk away from something if I'm starting to stress too much over its marketability.  Walk away for a few days and then read what you've written again.  I can always spot the trying-too-hard moments immediately if I've had some space.

3.  Giggling.  A good giggle can punch out AH Condition like nothing else.  (I am not condoning punching Anne Hathaway, by the way.  Did you see her as Catwoman (I had a hard time seeing her through all the wincing I was doing)?  That girl can high-kick like Billy Blanks.)

There you have it, my almost fool-proof cure for the dreaded AH Condition.  There are some times, I have to admit, that I just can't kick it.  And those are the times when I turn Joanna Newsom on full-blast and pretend I don't care if I ever get published.

*Please don't get all defensive and remind me that Anne was awesome as Fantine in the recent Les Mis reboot.  I may or may not have cried.  But admitting that would bust a hole wide open in my whole AH Condition thing, and that's just not fair.

Storm Tree

It was rainy and stormy yesterday.  There were a lot of, what I'd call, storm trees- branches flailing desperately in the wind.  It was really beautiful.  Today is sunny and dull.  It's a Joanna Newsom kind of day, that's for sure.  When I'm having a down day, when the kids are running me ragged, or when I've gotten some disheartening news, all I want to do is sit and listen to Joanna Newsom.  Her winding, jarring, searching melodies are the best thing for a mind disturbed.  Today is definitely a Joanna Newsom day.

Rejection.  Cold and impersonal.  Empty space where once there was a thin and hopeful bridge spanning a wide ravine.  I doubted I would ever cross it, but the hope was there.  And now I'm sitting firmly on a grassy patch, looking across to the other side, wondering if I'll ever get there.  The sun is beating down.  And I'm listening to Joanna Newsom.  That crazy voice, how it calms me, balms me.  If only it would rain.

Maybe someone will throw another rope bridge across to me again someday.  Maybe I'll write something so amazing that the second I touch the ropes they will solidify into stone, a sturdy stone bridge with cobblestones paving the way to the other side.  I'll prance across with my head thrown back, Joanna Newsom playing triumphantly, rain pouring joyously, storm trees waiting for me on the other side, trembling majestically in the wind.

Storm tree, thrash and writhe for me.  Keep the dream.

By all means, call me carrots. Please.

Remember that part in "Anne of Avonlea" when Gil proposed and Anne said no and a collective groan echoed throughout all womankind?  "Anne, what the heck is wrong with you?" we all shouted at the TV.  Remember the look on Gilbert's face when he whispered "Please say yes?"  That hopeless/hopeful, heart-wrenching look?  I mean, come on, who (besides Anne, with her ridiculous barrier of an imagination) could say no to a face like that?  That's the face I wish I could send to the two agents currently reviewing my manuscript "Strange Bloom."  "Please say yes" I'd whisper, and their hearts would melt.  "Of course, of course when you put it that way we'll give you a chance, work with you, make your dreams come true."  Too bad I'm not Gilbert Blythe.  If only.

Ramen noodles and writers are not as different as you might think.

My husband thought I was a nutjob the first time I made ramen noodles for him.  We were college students, hence the choice of food, and I was making him lunch.  "Wait, what are you doing?" Ryan asked worriedly when I pulled the steaming pot of noddles and broth over to the sink to drain.  "You're not dumping all that broth down the drain are you?  That's the best part!"  Indeed I was, because, unlike he, I did not think the broth was the best part.  In fact, I thought the broth was nothing more than an extra, sub-par component of this dish; the noodles were obviously the only part worth eating.  I tried to explain this to him.  "No, it's ALL good," he tried to insist," but I stubbornly held my ground.  I'm happy to say, six years later, on the very rare occasion we take a trip down memory lane and indulge ourselves in a steaming bowl of ramen noodles, we now both only eat the noodles.  Ryan now agrees that they are the only good part.

Why the long story about ramen?  I'll tell you.  It has been brought to my attention rather forcefully as of late that writers are a lot like ramen noodles and ramen broth.  There's a whole giant cooking pot of ramen stewing constantly on the great stove of the publishing world.  The beefy hand of mainstream taste is constantly stirring that pot, waiting for the noodles to be done.  At any given time, a huge flock of writers will submit their work to literary agents and wait with bated breath for a response.  Alas, how many of us would-be authors turn out to be merely broth.  Bullion flavored water for the lucky writers- the marketable right-place-right-time noodle writers to cook in.  And relatively quickly, just as it only takes a few minutes for ramen noodles to soften in water, the cooking process is done, and the dreaded strainer of rejection is brought, with the pot, to the sink.  Woosh.  Down the sink we, the collective rejected, go.  And the noodles are served onto the plate, the appetite of the general masses is appeased.

Was I wrong, all those years ago, to insist that the broth has no value?  No.  Taste is taste.  And broth had better get used to it or find a way to turn into a noodle.  That's the breaks, baby-cakes.