Writing Life

[Hopalong]

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to report some good news that has a lot of significant ripples for me. Early days, but it feels important.

I had a deadline for my novel workshop. In the weeks prior, I avoided my revisions like mad, telling myself it was just the usual (and typical) ADD procrastination, and continued to practice my escapist repertoire. As the deadline approached, anxiety mounted.

Nothing weird about that, deadlines always have produced that put-it-off-until-last-minute pattern, which produces a bunch of adrenalin, which itself serves as a brain stimulant, which ultimately helps me focus on the task and get it done. But, usually..get it partway done. And not as well as I realize the next day on re-reading, I could have done. It's still pretty good. I'm giving a short reading tonight. I haven't lost my confidence in my word-working. But the pattern has held me back from focusing in a SUSTAINED way, which a novel inherently requires. Not poetry, which I've done pretty successfully my whole adult life.

So what happened this time, I later pieced together with my T, is that because I wanted the goal this time so strongly, AND I was not writing for career, a boss, or a publication I don't care about...I approached this anxiety a little differently, was more willing to sit and actually ponder its significance (and now, unlike a few years ago, I had the time to be more reflective about it).

The result was a realization that: 1) yes, anxiety is generally related to ADD, but... 2) I have separate and distinct anxiety about writing fiction. So I was scared of the revisions process because of its complexity and because I don't have years of practice with fiction... AND 3) I want to write this in such a deep way that it's almost harder to do it, because it has huge meaning for me.

But I did it. The revisions are still draft but they're smart and fun to read and enhance the characters and the MOST important thing .. once I started I felt the joy again. Joy of writing. All of a sudden I was experiencing a new reality, yes I CAN write a novel! (My workshop instructor has made it clear she believes in me, but I was failing to believe in myself.)

It's still scary at times, but it's also thrilling. I have told my T about depression/grief for years..."I have lost interest in my own life." All of a sudden, I feel as though it's back. And writing this novel, and figuring out why I was scared...this episode of anxiety symptoms went away overnight. There's some drive I just had a spurt of that I'd lost for a very long time. It's partly related to age. I'll be seventy in a year and a half. If I don't write this novel NOW, while I have enough wits and health to do it, then the truth is I will not write it. And that's what a lot of the anxiety was about. I can avoid things the rest of my life if I choose to, but this particular thing has beauty and meaning and joy in it for me. And deep below my neuroses, I want this thing profoundly. More than a mate, more than beauty, more than...anything else. It was good to connect it all up.

I'm not expecting that anxiety symptoms will never return. It just means so much to me to have excavated WHY this particular fear was different than other fears (because it was about something that's at the core of my reason for living), and then to experience the relief of working through it.

Dunno if all that's very clear but wanted to share it. Also figured it'd be good to have a thread where I can talk about my writing life now and then.

Thanks for reading!
love
Hops

[Hopalong]

Tonight I gave my first-ever public reading of my fiction. (The first section of the first chapter of my first novel.) I was nervous as I was first after intermission, but they had wine during the break!

It went really well. The audience was supportive and listened, laughed in several spots which made me purr, and burst out in applause when I finished even though they'd been instructed to hold it until all readers were done. One sweet friend from my Covenant Group came too and seemed to enjoy it. So I am feeling massive, massive relief.

One paragraph at a time.

love
Hops

[Twoapenny]

Hops, that all sounds so amazing.  I'm so glad that you've been able to get through that anxiety stumbling block and do it anyway, and that you've found so much joy in it as well   And to be reading it out loud, to actual people - who loved it!  That is just incredible news.  I hope you are walking on air today xx

[Hopalong]

Thanks, Tupp. It really was heartwarming and encouraging, big time.
I've given probably fifty public poetry readings over the years, taught on public TV, given lay sermons, other talks.

But I'd never done an official public reading of fiction. It feels good to break through something like that at my age. Made me want to commit to keep going. If I'm doing that, no matter what else, I'll be fulfilling my life purpose.

I'd thought that was maybe gone for good.

love
Hops

[Twoapenny]

Thanks, Tupp. It really was heartwarming and encouraging, big time.
I've given probably fifty public poetry readings over the years, taught on public TV, given lay sermons, other talks.

But I'd never done an official public reading of fiction. It feels good to break through something like that at my age. Made me want to commit to keep going. If I'm doing that, no matter what else, I'll be fulfilling my life purpose.

I'd thought that was maybe gone for good.

love
Hops

I'm really glad it has given you that bit of oomph   Do you have any notion why you find prose much more anxiety producing than poetry?  Just curious xx

[lighter]

Well, I really enjoy reading your word craft posts, so I'm not surprised at all to hear you were received with laughter and applause, Hops.

Splendidly done.....staying with the fear and procrastinating till you sorted, and figured it out.  Clarity can dispell suffering.  Amazing!

Continued joy and progress, Hops.
Light

[Hopalong]

Thanks for asking, Tupp.
Being a poet is kind of a very deep identity I've had for a long time.
Always will.

But most of my poetry was one or two pages, deep rhythm/assonance/free verse...quite narrative and prosey lines as poetry goes (nothing postmodern about it, though not formal forms). And, it'd usually be written in a day, or even shorter. Might revise a bit (which means a couple WORDS or LINES) over the course of a week. But overall, it has been bursts of the creative, coming from a very deep place in the psyche, with an INDIRECT emotional resonance.

For me, writing this story that brewed in my head for 25+ years, is structurally utterly different. It needs consistent POV (point of view), juggles two main and several important non-main characters, dialogue, plot, narrative tension, scene, time period, plot timeline, careers (hadda interview that captain to get one character true), backstories, geography and history, on and on for loads of pages (likely at least 200). It's a different universe of words.

And I'm starting to wallow in it, which is why I'm feeling happy again. But the fear was of its great difference, plus doubting my capacity to sustain it. The latter is still going to be daunting for me, but also likely a culminating kind of an achievement if I make it.

It is the vast difference in this project, plus inner stuff, plus ADD, that explains it, I think. While the hyper-focus of ADD has actually been an inadvertent advantage in writing poetry I have to pull back, wide-view, longer view, to complete my novel well.

I'll find out if I can do it. But even to try, is the right thing.

love
Hops

[Hopalong]

Lighter, thank you so much.
Hearing you be joyful about my joy
is really touching...and I know it's real.

Hugs
Hops

[Twoapenny]

Thanks for asking, Tupp.
Being a poet is kind of a very deep identity I've had for a long time.
Always will.

But most of my poetry was one or two pages, deep rhythm/assonance/free verse...quite narrative and prosey lines as poetry goes (nothing postmodern about it, though not formal forms). And, it'd usually be written in a day, or even shorter. Might revise a bit (which means a couple WORDS or LINES) over the course of a week. But overall, it has been bursts of the creative, coming from a very deep place in the psyche, with an INDIRECT emotional resonance.

For me, writing this story that brewed in my head for 25+ years, is structurally utterly different. It needs consistent POV (point of view), juggles two main and several important non-main characters, dialogue, plot, narrative tension, scene, time period, plot timeline, careers (hadda interview that captain to get one character true), backstories, geography and history, on and on for loads of pages (likely at least 200). It's a different universe of words.

And I'm starting to wallow in it, which is why I'm feeling happy again. But the fear was of its great difference, plus doubting my capacity to sustain it. The latter is still going to be daunting for me, but also likely a culminating kind of an achievement if I make it.

It is the vast difference in this project, plus inner stuff, plus ADD, that explains it, I think. While the hyper-focus of ADD has actually been an inadvertent advantage in writing poetry I have to pull back, wide-view, longer view, to complete my novel well.

I'll find out if I can do it. But even to try, is the right thing.

love
Hops

Aw Hops, I felt tearful reading that!  Yes, I can see exactly what you mean - short, sharp bursts of something that is a little work of art all by itself would seem easier than a lengthy piece that you have to sustain all the way through.  Makes perfect sense and I'm so glad that you've got to a stage where you can dive in and keep working on it.  Are you able to tell us about the plot or do you prefer to keep it close until you're further in.  I'm so glad you've got this beautiful project to work on, and that it is one of your life long dreams!  I think many of us think we could write a book but it's so much harder than it would appear.  I'm really glad it's going so well for you and that you're enjoying doing it so much I'm looking forward to little updates! xx

[Hopalong]

The plot's pretty complicated and it'd take forever to do it properly...
but it's about an eccentric woman who "rescues" (kidnaps) an obviously abused child, and goes on a long journey/adventure while being followed by a detective who gradually realizes she is right and the law is wrong (in this instance--think bureaucracy masquerading as justice), and falls for her. At the end (which is a happy and wryly romantic one) there's a mysterious episode that is viewed individually by the four main characters, showing that each has an utterly different perception of what happened. One real, one childlike, one a mix, one misses it...but trusts all the others' stories are true.

I'm sure that makes little sense! But if, however long from now, it works out...I will PM you the title!

xo
Hops

[Hopalong]

The main reason this realization/epiphany after the month of severe anxiety was that it answered a question I've been struggling with for almost seven years.

If my mothering is over (not only over but rejected) -- what am I living for?

I didn't think it was a FAIR question, and worked as hard as I could to answer it in different ways (social justice, church change, helping folks I work for, loving/supporting friends). But the question would not go away. I told my T over and over and over, "I have lost interest in my own life." I think what I was really saying was, "I have lost a sense of purpose for my own life."

The story I'm writing is full of that love I haven't known where to put. And telling it fills me up and empties me and fills me up again.

Somehow, the connection clicked. I just feel as though there is a reason for me to continue living, and that's to write -- my own story, novel, poems. The poems can be intense or sad, or many have been. I always found ways to make them also beautiful, or moving, to connect. And they did.

But in this story, I'm also getting the chance to tell something moving and because the length is bigger, expansive...I get to offer humor, too. Foibles, fallibility, and tenderness. Having the reading audience laugh (where I'd hoped they would) was more joyful than anything I've felt in a long while.

Since that knitting-together realization, so far:
--I'm drinking 50% less
--I'm walking 50% more
--I feel less tense around others
--I'm listening better

So my writing life is really about my LIFE. And I think it's coming back to me. In a new way.

love
Hops

[Hopalong]

Questions I resist from well-intentioned friends IRL:

--Have you written today?
--How far have you gotten?
--How long is it/will it be?
--Are you going to have it PUBLISHED?

These are queries that provoke anxiety and also things I don't want to focus on answering for others. So far, I've found that just saying that, "I work better when I don't focus on that or answer "progress" questions...I realized they make me anxious and pull me away from the process."

It's working so far. Nobody seems to mind a gentle redirect.

xxoo
Hops

[Twoapenny]

Hops that plot makes perfect sense to me and would to so many others, and features many things that so many of us would identify with, I think.  And raises questions - what causes us to see someone as 'eccentric' (was talking about this with a friend last night.  In the UK, he reckons it's money.  He works for an elderly lady who he feels would be labelled mad and be pumped full of drugs if she lived on a council estate on a low pension.  But she's worth millions and has a huge manor house so people say she's eccentric )

And rescuing an abused child - on the surface always seems like a noble thing but so many layers - is there co-dependency?  Will the rescuer abandon the child if the child doesn't fit an idea they have of how they should be?  Will the child turn on the rescuer as the focus of the rage they feel toward their abuser?  And so on and so on and so on.  What a brilliant idea, you can take that in so many directions.

A girl I went to school with was fostered by the family of a friend at the same school.  They were inseparable and the family went to great lengths to take the girl from the foster family she was currently placed with (and her siblings) and have her go live with them.  She was there a year or so and then they decided they wanted to move to a different part of the country - and she wasn't part of the deal.  So at sixteen she took two jobs, rented a house and then went and got her brother and sister out of care and brought them up herself.  I always thought what they did to her was so cruel; a rejection like that would be hard for anyone to bear but for someone who'd already been through so much - amazing what people can survive without becoming bitter and resentful.

I'm so, so glad to read that you feel life is coming back to you.  Isn't it amazing how things can change when we're able to do something that just feels right.  I'm so glad you were able to see what that was and that it's have such a profound effect.  I'm glad you've got this now to pour your love into - and it's something that others will appreciate as well.  I'm amazed you've been able to make it humorous!  So often you read a plot description and it sounds like it will be a heavy read, but humour is often the best way to deal with difficult topics.  I hope it continues to fill you up, Hops, it sounds amazing

And just a curious question - when you tell friends that certain things make you anxious is there any negativity from them to you?  It's something I wonder about with others.  I only realised very recently that I don't tend to tell people my honest reasons for not wanting to do things (because it's usually anxiety) and I tend to make up excuses.  I'm not really sure why.  So I wondered if you get any negative responses?  Only if you're comfortable answering, of course   I'm made up that the book is going so well and is causing so many other positive ripples xx

[Hopalong]

Good question, Tupp:

when you tell friends that certain things make you anxious is there any negativity from them to you?  It's something I wonder about with others.

People I'm close to, or those who can handle emotional realities, take it fine. Even celebrate it.
People who are maybe more focused on assessing productivity (driven by accomplishment or what-will-they-think-of-me more than inner peace) may draw a blank or be confused by the response.

But if anyone acts judgmental or irritated if I explain myself that way, they're just not people I'd be inclined to confide in. I don't think I'd have a meltdown but I'd register it as non-supportive (not out of malice, but because something about how they judge themselves is being projected onto me). I wouldn't be angry with them, but view them as not able to be supportive or sensitive.

I notice who responds supportively and pays attention to what I actually said, rather than expecting me to respond in a certain way. Those are the people I try to spend MORE time with.

I'm discovering that the more I accept myself, all my reality, the easier it is to make new friends and enjoy my existing friends more. If I'm finding some peace for me, I can also hear them better.

xxoo
Hops

[Twoapenny]

Good question, Tupp:

when you tell friends that certain things make you anxious is there any negativity from them to you?  It's something I wonder about with others.

People I'm close to, or those who can handle emotional realities, take it fine. Even celebrate it.
People who are maybe more focused on assessing productivity (driven by accomplishment or what-will-they-think-of-me more than inner peace) may draw a blank or be confused by the response.

But if anyone acts judgmental or irritated if I explain myself that way, they're just not people I'd be inclined to confide in. I don't think I'd have a meltdown but I'd register it as non-supportive (not out of malice, but because something about how they judge themselves is being projected onto me). I wouldn't be angry with them, but view them as not able to be supportive or sensitive.

I notice who responds supportively and pays attention to what I actually said, rather than expecting me to respond in a certain way. Those are the people I try to spend MORE time with.

I'm discovering that the more I accept myself, all my reality, the easier it is to make new friends and enjoy my existing friends more. If I'm finding some peace for me, I can also hear them better.

xxoo
Hops

That all makes perfect sense, Hops, especially the part about accepting yourself, all of yourself.  We do spend a lot of time rejecting aspects of ourselves, don't we.  I've struggled in the past with disclosing to friends as responses weren't supportive and it does make you curl in on yourself.  I did tell a friend a little while ago that I was seeing a counsellor about my panic attacks and she was supportive about that.  Interestingly, there are friends I won't mention the recent porn incident to, because I know they'll think I'm making too big a deal of it.  But the friend I spoke to yesterday works with children (she's a teacher) so she understands the safeguarding issues and the potential legal/criminal implications son could inadvertently stumble in to.  So I think it's great that you've got friends you can reveal to and those that you just keep that bit from without seeing it as a big problem between you.  I think that is something that I need to work on xx