Yesterday a terrible thing happened. I got up, got my daughter to school, did a couple errands, and came home to write my poem for the workshop I’m doing and work on my memoir before heading to the gym to work out with my trainer, but when I got home and opened my computer….nothing. I stared out the window for about 30 minutes. Watched a few neighborhood mommies and nannies walk by pushing strollers. Saw some joggers. Observed the almost-entirely-bare trees and the gigantic piles of leaves in the gutter waiting for the township to come scoop them up and take them away. Looked back at my computer. Nothing.

I must have started and deleted my poem (the assignment was to write a poem with an extended metaphor standing in for an abstraction) five or eight or twelve times. Then I had to go work out with my trainer, Jenny. I had so little energy, I felt like I’d just give about 3 pints of blood. I went home, and back to work. Looked out the window and there was the guy from the grocery store down the street rounding up carts. And look! A Maserati! Don’t see those every day. And does that squirrel look entirely healthy? And I’m so glad my neighbors are painting their house gray instead of brown.

Then it was time to pick up my daughter from school and the workday was effectively over. Not one line of salvageable poetry written. (The poem was due no later than today.) Not one word of memoir written. (I was now behind 2000 words.) I felt like I could slip into a coma if I made the mistake of getting horizontal.

A few hours later, my husband came home from work. We hung out. Had pizza for dinner. Got the little girl off to bed. Got the big boys doing their homework. I cleaned up the kitchen. I was draaaaaained.

Then I sat down to read my email, Facebook, etc…, and felt an almost physical “click” in my brain. I switched over to my empty Word doc and started to type. Suddenly it was like a giant hair clog in the drain that is my…uh…cognitive pipe (???) cleared and everything was flowing again. I cranked out my extended metaphor poem in 20 minutes flat. (The circus as metaphor for infatuation, if you must know.) It was good enough that I only made a few minor changes before turning it in this morning.

I have never experienced such a thing with my writing. Writer’s block is not a thing that happens to me often. Laziness, yes. If I don’t have a real deadline, I can put off writing forever. But to actually sit down to write and not be able to produce? Weird, man. And very disconcerting. And that sensation of it all opening up again! It was so much like a switch being flipped on! Boy, I wish I could do that intentionally.  Can you imagine? If I could, I’d never have an off day again.

Some writers are natural titlers. I am not one of them. Whenever I see a clever title I am filled with admiration and envy. I mean, The Grapes of Wrath? Damn, that’s good. And how about To Kill a Mockingbird? Or “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock“? I could go on all day with the excellent titles. Poetry books often have the best titles of all. Some favorites off the top of my head: American Fractal, Human Dark with Sugar, A Change of Maps, Hallelujah Blackout… Memoir titles tend to not be quite as good, simply because they have to make sense to the book buyer instead of just being a creative flight of fancy. But there are still some good ones out there (and Going Rogue is not one of them.)

So I’ve been thinking about my memoir title. It’s not a humorous memoir (not yet, anyway–I will admit, I did consider this morning while blow-drying my hair that I could, if I really wanted to, turn it into a humorous memoir instead of a dramatic/traumatic one pretty easily. And my family might still speak to me afterward–at least the side that’s still speaking to me now. Heh. And I find humor very easy to write. But I digress.) So because it’s not (yet) humorous, the title is even harder. Do you realize how easy it is to title a serious/dramatic/traumatic memoir something very overwrought and melodramatic and sentimental and corny? As easy as stepping in poo at a dog park.

This morning I went to the chiropractor. My chiropractor is very cool and fun, plus he never fails to fix my gym-related, high-heel-shoe-wearing-related, and accident-prone-related injuries. This morning we were talking about my day ahead of memoir-writing (if he could see how I sit when I’m writing, I think he’d probably run out and buy a sports car, because my bad posture is definitely going to keep him in the lettuce for awhile longer) and he started suggesting titles. He came up with The Lady and the Shoes, which I thought didn’t suck. It’s almost Chaucer-ish, if you squint. Except my book is a childhood memoir and at that age I wasn’t yet a shoe whore. Or a lady, for that matter. (And I’m still not! Har.) As he left the room so I could lie there face down on his table thingie with electrode doohickeys hooked up to my sore back, he said, “Ponder on that for awhile and I’ll be back.”

Ponder, I did. I mean, it’s not like I could do anything else while I was lying there, right? So I started thinking about what my title would need to accomplish. It would need to be serious, or at least, not flippant. It could indicate the fact that it’s about a girl. Ideally, it would reflect my theme (see previous post), pique the curiosity of Joe or Jane Reader who is strolling around Barnes & Noble looking for something to read, and not be named the same thing as any other book. And then I thought of it! I thought of a title that I think accomplishes all of the above and is also a twist on a familiar phrase. AND, to my surprise, nobody else has named their book thusly, at least not that’s available on Amazon*. Success! Needless to say, I’m exceedingly pleased with myself.  And I apologize for not telling you the title just yet, but I’m a little worried it’ll be swiped by someone. When I have a full draft, you, dear reader, will be the first to know. I promise.

* Oh crap. I just this second Googled further and found a book of poetry published by someone I’ve never heard of, in Edinburgh, in 1996, with the same title. Do you think that’s a deal-breaker? I’m thinking perhaps not.

I’ve been wanting and intending to write a memoir for three or four years now, but as I mentioned a few posts ago, it took me until now to actually begin. Not because I didn’t have time. Not because I didn’t have material–if anything, I have too much  material. I could probably write three or four memoirs without even having to strain. The problem was that I couldn’t nail down a theme. It doesn’t fly to just sit and regurgitate your life story. A successful memoir must have the same elements of a novel: a character that begins one way, takes a journey (be it physical, spiritual, psychological, or whatever), and ends up changed. There must be conflict and challenges along the way that serve as catalysts to the character’s change. I knew this, and yet every time I thought about the memoir I would write, I found myself overwhelmed by the options. Do I write a coming-of-age memoir? (Oh, my childhood was fraught. There were certainly worse ones, but mine was both unusual and full of trauma.) A parenting memoir? (I have an Aspergers child, a gifted child with learning disabilities and ADD, and an internationally adopted child of a different race than the rest of us, AND I am no natural mother, let me tell you.) A humorous memoir about my transformation from a socially anxious, hardcore hippie chick with a 20-acre alpaca farm on a remote Northwest island to a fashionable, club-hopping urban corporate wife in New Jersey suburb just outside Manhattan? (That last one is going to be my next book, I just decided. Who wouldn’t buy that book, I ask you?)

Participating in NaNoWriMo took all the indecision and overwhelm out of the equation. I knew I’d procrastinated enough and if I ever wanted to have a book to sell, I needed to just write the damn thing. Because I was already two days late starting NaNoWriMo, I had to get on the horse and ride. So I just started writing and what came out was the childhood stuff. Ok then, I said to myself, that’s the memoir I’ll write first. There certainly were plenty of highs and lows (mostly lows, I’m sorry to say) so I’ve had no shortage of material. It’s been more or less like the proverbial released floodgates.

What I worried about, though, was how I would shape all these random stories. Sure, here’s my childhood. All these things happened to me, some related and some unrelated. Who cares? I had no idea what my theme was, or what would tie it all together. I had no idea how I actually changed as I grew through all these experiences and into young adulthood.

Well, surprise! I’m now about 30,000 words along, and I’m beginning to see things I didn’t see before. Patterns. Connections. I can see my theme taking shape. The fog is clearing, and the change is coming into focus. The story I’m telling is the story of a girl who had a fascinating and interesting childhood, and also a traumatic one in several ways, but through all that, it’s the story of a girl who was told over and over that she was inherently bad, that there was something deeply flawed about her that other people could see and she couldn’t. It’s about how she comes through the other side of self-hatred, depression, and suicidal fantasies to find the good in herself and learn how to nurture it. Yes, that old chestnut. Ok, maybe it’s not the most original theme in the world, but I’m pretty sure it’s universal. And if I can find a compelling way to tell this story that touches people, that makes people who have been told they suck realize that it’s about other people’s issues, not theirs, and that they can find something good in themselves, well…I think I might have something.

One of the negatives about having a really juicy story to tell–especially a childhood story–is that the juicy bits usually involve other people behaving badly. And the other people are very frequently parents, grandparents, or others of close relationship. I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone reading this that when you start writing all the rotten stuff that happened to you as a kid and how messed up you are from it, you also start to think about repercussions from some of the people involved. It goes without saying that my own recollections of childhood experiences and the effect they had on me are likely different from how the other people involved remember things. By now, most of us are aware that everyone experiences any given moment differently, based on personality, background, world-view, and so on. So what seemed like extremely traumatic events to me could have seemed like no big deal to the adults involved at the time, and I’m sure some of them will be appalled to read my memoir and find themselves portrayed in less than flattering light. (I try to keep this in mind when I parent my own kids–I know I’ve traumatized them with actions or words I really thought were nothing. Can we even help it?)  I wonder what they will say, and how it will affect my relationships with them. A few of the people involved are now dead, so that’s not an issue, but others are alive and well and perhaps don’t want the world to know about some of their less than stellar choices.

Something else I’ve been dealing with as I’ve been writing about these experiences is that my dreams are getting really weird. I’ve dealt with all of my baggage in therapy, so it’s not upsetting to write about–at this point it’s almost like all that stuff happened to someone else. But my dreams are full of monsters these days. It’s so unexpected, and the part of me who once wanted to be a psychologist is fascinated.

I’d love to talk to other memoirists about how they dealt with airing family secrets and also about what effect writing about traumatic events had on their psyches. At this point, it’s just me and my laptop and my dining room table. It’s a little lonely.

It is day 7 of NaNoWriMo (day 5 for me, since I came in late) and I have written just over 10,000 words. What I didn’t mention in my previous post is that I’m not actually writing a novel, but rather a memoir. A memoir I’ve been meaning to write for years, but never got around to starting. I had a very unusual childhood, you see, and there is much memoir fodder there. Being as narcissistic as the next person (and we poets tend to be extra narcissistic for some reason), I have gone on assuming that my adventures (and my thoughts about them) would be fascinating to readers. I may be dead wrong, but I won’t know until I write and try to publish the thing.

What really pushed me was being in LA with my fellow editors, all of whom have a book just out, or forthcoming, or are writing proposals for the book they’ve finished writing. And then there was me: owner of one unfinished poetry manuscript (technically it’s finished, given the number of poems in it, but I’m unhappy with a huge chunk of it, so…unfinished) and no other writing project on the back burner. Not only that, but I have done virtually no writing since graduating over a year ago. I find it very hard to motivate myself to sit down and put the sweat into it–I need real deadlines. And it’s all too easy to let my editing duties (and actual life) take up all my time. But I also want a book to sell. I figured NaNoWriMo, which includes a website on which you register so that others can follow your progress, is as close to a real deadline as I’m going to get.

So far, it’s working. I’m writing 2000 words a day, which is more than the pace for finishing a 50,000-word manuscript by November 30, but I have some making up to do. Besides, 50,000 words is a pretty short book, so I’ll probably want it to be longer than that. And, I’ve found that I am a speed demon when it comes to writing prose. It may be terrible (I don’t know — I haven’t gone back and read through what I’ve written) but it only takes me 1.5 hours to write 2000 words. The beauty of memoir is that I already know the plot and don’t have to think anything up. It’s all spilling out in a flood of words.

Next up: Digging all the skeletons from my family closet, and other teasers.

I’ve been back for a few days now, and meant to update here, but as soon as I returned I decided to sign up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, for those who don’t know, where the goal is to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November) and now I have very little free time. Because I’m…you guessed it…writing. A lot.

Anyway, the trip was very productive and grueling and also fun. The highlight, of course, was the Red Hen Press fundraiser and 15th Anniversary celebration at the Luxe Hotel in L.A.  It was a thrill to chat with people I’ve long admired, such as Mark Doty, Wanda Coleman, Eloise Klein Healy, Lisa See, and more. Not to mention rubbing shoulders with Carolyn See, Doug Kearney, Jamaica Kincaid, Alicia Ostriker, etc.. etc..  The literary talent in that room was mind-boggling. I had the good fortune to be seated next to my friend Naseem Rakha, who is on her way to being one of those huge literary names, and who is very fun. I’m sorry we didn’t get more time to chat. You should go buy her book immediately and read it, though, because it’s brillant. The Crying Tree. You won’t be sorry, I promise.  While in L.A., I shared a room with LA Review nonfiction editor Ann Beman, and it was just like a slumber party except with room service. We had a great time together, shopping, eating, and visiting the Getty Museum, which I’d never seen before. What an amazing place! I want to go back sometime soon.

The big snafu of the weekend was that I was absolutely certain the Red Hen party ended at 1:00 pm (it even said so on the Red Hen website at one point) so I had a flight home at 3:45 pm. What I found out after arriving was that the party ended at 3:00 pm. I was absolutely crushed, but had no choice but to leave at 1:00 to catch my plane. I missed the best part of the event — the readings and speeches. What a disappointment! I won’t say I wasn’t absolutely thrilled to be home again, though, after five days away. The alternative was the red-eye, which I would have taken if I’d known, but it would have been hell.

In other news, the Kim Addonizio workshop continues to be brilliant and is making me write a poem a week, which isn’t as hard as I imagined it would be. I’m getting so much out of it. And Los Angeles Review work continues apace with reading for the Spring 2010 issue. We will be opening up a CafePress store soon for the purchase of LA Review and Red Hen Press gear. Stay tuned.

At the end of the first week, I have to say that the workshop is going exceedingly well.  My fellow workshop attendees are both gifted poets and thoughtful analysts.  I will certainly get an amazing amount of insight and growth from this eight weeks, which is more than I was even hoping for.

Interestingly, the assigment for this week is to write a poem in rhyming couplets.  This is really a push outside my comfort zone.  I did have to write in several forms while taking Craft of Poetry for my MFA, but I found myself writing humorous poetry for every one of those assignments.  I just can’t seem to do forms in a serious way.  I feel like it’s beyond my skill level as a poet.  But I didn’t want to do a joke poem for this workshop.  It’s too valuable, having the feedback of such talented people, to waste a week on something silly.  So I’m attempting to write something serious in rhyming couplets.  Does not compute for me, but slant rhyme is saving my bacon and staggered line lengths are keeping the rhythm from being jump-rope-rhyme-y.  Of course, I’ve only written five lines, but the rest is in my head.  If I can get it on paper (or my laptop screen, rather) the way it is forming in my head, I think it has a chance to be a reasonably decent piece.  Fingers crossed. I will have to write the rest of it tomorrow, on the due date. This is how I work. I can’t really get much done on any assignment until it’s less than 24 hours before the due date.  Weirdly, even as I’m working at the 11th hour, I find it fun rather than stressful.  This is how I roll.  I’ve come to accept it.  Thus, I’ve spent the weekend doing other things. Taking my girl to the park. Having a night out in the city with my husband and our amazing dear friends in Manhattan. Purging our basement of crap. (Anyone want some stuff?  We have a LOT of stuff.  Come and get some stuff!)

Coming up this week, I travel to Seattle to visit my mother who is very ill and who seems to be the subject of 90% of my poetry lately.  Ah, those  fraught mother/daughter relationships…  I’ve had a knot in the pit of my stomach about the visit for at least two or three weeks.  But there is also excitement because I’ll be flying from Seattle to L.A. for a work weekend with Red Hen Press.  I’ll be seeing my beloved homegirls and fellow poetry editors, Kelly Davio and Tanya Chernov, as well the rest of the very talented LA Review editors and Red Hen people.  Plus, I’ll be meeting a few idols and will have to consciously keep my cool.  Does anyone want to take bets on whether I go in for a hug when meeting Rita Dove?  It’s a definite possibility.

So my workshop with Kim Addonizio began today.  I had to post a poem.  I had nothing to post, though, having only just signed up for the workshop a couple of days ago, followed by a weekend devoid of writing opportunities.  I looked at my “needs to be revised and/or finished” folder last night and found a poem that was completed, but was an early draft in need of revisions.  I revised it.  Retitled it.  Planned to turn it in, but felt as though I was cheating somehow — after all, a major purpose of taking the workshop was to create NEW work.  This morning, though, the first two poets posted their work and suddenly my roadkill poem (Yes. Roadkill.  Hey, if it’s good enough for Madeline DeFrees, it’s good enough for me) didn’t seem right.  So I pulled up another, unfinished poem.  Nothing more than a few lines that I wrote a year ago and then abandoned.  I thought it had some promise, though, so I spent the day today adding to it.

The way I write is in very short bursts.  I write a line or three, then check my email, brew some tea, feed the cats (we have a very fat one who requires feeding approximately 47 times per day.)  Then I come back and mess with what I’ve got or maybe write another line or look up some factoid I need, then take another short break.  It goes like that all day until I have a draft.  Then I go back and revise as much as I can without further assistance from outside readers.

By this evening I had a draft I couldn’t do anything more with. It’s been such a long time since I’ve really worked on a poem all day like that, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it.  Boy, do I have a feeling of accomplishment tonight. I admit I ran it by my homegirl Kelly, who suggested a couple of word changes.  And then I turned it in to the workshop, and I’m feeling great about it.  The best thing is that it fits nicely into my manuscript, which is in dire need of fresh work.

I’m liking the other folks who have posted their intros, too.  (Hi, X.P.!)  I was nervous, but the nerves have gone, and I’m super excited to be part of this workshop.  And now — time to look forward to writing the next poem!

I’m delighted to say that I’ve been having good luck with submissions the past few months.  I’ve had plenty of rejections, of course, but have had enough poems picked up by journals to make the rejections much less painful.  I’ve got stuff forthcoming in Spillway, Rattle, 34th Parallel, and Redheaded Stepchild. And the poem that Nimrod took almost 18 months ago is finally in the current issue.  HUZZAH!

So all is well, right?  Well, not so much.  There are two problems: 1. I am running out of decent poems to send out because so many have been taken over the last couple of years (not a bad problem to have, admittedly), and 2. I am not at all satisfied with my manuscript as it stands and it needs a lot of new work to make it publishable.  And then there is the third problem, which is that I’m not writing much.  I’ve been out of my MFA program for over a year, and I’ve written maybe 10 poems, six of which are even remotely publishable.  At that rate, I’m going to be a granny by the time my manuscript is really ready.

Yesterday on Facebook I noticed that Kim Addonizio is holding an online workshop, which begins Monday.  First of all, I’m a huge fan of her work.  Secondly, I really could use the feedback of someone with a different aesthetic than the poets I worked with in my MFA program.  They were very talented and taught me more than I could have imagined about the craft and art of poetry, but it’s always good to get a different angle.  And thirdly, a workshop is the only thing that is going to force me to write a new poem every single week, and one that’s good enough to show to a group of people and one of my poetry idols.

I can’t wait to begin! (And am ignoring my fears.)

Los Angeles Review is now on Twitter — ghost written by moi.  Ok, not exactly ghost written, because it’s not like anyone else is getting credit, and anyway it’s announcements and events and stuff mostly instead of something complex and skillfully crafted, but still.  And I think everyone reading this who has a Twitter account should follow us immediately.  If you do, I’m pretty sure you’ll be thinner and sexier and live a fabulous life by association.