Category: writing life (Page 13 of 17)

I honestly don’t miss social media. I don’t miss putting so much of myself online for others to view.

(Said the woman who is currently blogging… BUT, blogging is somehow different, just as writing a book and publishing it is different. A practical and non-inconsequential difference is that there are no “Like” buttons that come with selling a book. I’m not there with readers, looking to see whether or not they’ll give me a heart emoji at the end of each chapter. The book belongs to them, and if they read it, they’ll make it into their own story. They will complete the journey for themselves, and I am no longer part of that journey. Similarly, there are no “Likes” or what-have-you with my blog posts. Yes, I have a comment option for each post, but whether someone comments or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m writing, and the blog is my own space. I’m not fighting for attention or popularity the way I am on social media. Frankly, the feeling I get when I use something like Twitter or Goodreads is the same feeling of insecurity I used to get in middle school when I struggled to be popular. It’s not a feeling I’m keen on reliving. And yet, I bought into the lie that I needed to be involved with these platforms. I bought into the seduction that somehow, some way, Twitter would help me as an author, that Goodreads would result in good connections, good friends. But all I ever experienced was anxiety, inadequacy, and the gnawing feeling that I wasn’t popular enough. Being free of all that? Liberating. Now I keep track of my books in my writer’s notebook. No one but my husband and my real-life friends know what books I’m reading. I love it. I love being anonymous. I love sharing myself through my writing, but in a place and in a way that is mine, that allows me to simple BE, to not worry about my “numbers” or my “platform” or my “brand.” All of those things make me shiver. Good riddance.)

All of this social media shedding that I’ve been doing is a result of having read Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, and putting into practice his “digital de-clutter.” I did the de-clutter during Lent (which is technically longer than the 30 days Newport recommends, but if I could do it for 30 days, what’s ten days more?). On Fat Tuesday, I removed all my social media apps, my podcast app, my email app, and moved the Google search bar off the main page and into the recesses of the “Settings–>Apps” screen (which, if I wanted to access it, required me to do some extra clicking and searching before I could find it). The only thing remaining on my phone’s main screen was the text messaging app, the calendar app, my Fertility Awareness app (being digitally minimal does not mean I’m going to suddenly start baby-making any time soon, so the fertility awareness app — aka, my birth control method — ain’t goin’ nowhere!), my alarm app, and my camera/photo gallery apps. Also the calculator app, because that’s just handy. My smartphone suddenly became almost-dumb. My rule for text messaging was that I was only going to check three times: morning, right after work, and before bed. This way my mom or whoever could still communicate information via text, but I wasn’t going to be picking up my phone every time a notification buzzed in. I told people that if they wanted to reach me right away they could call me. I actually started calling friends and family on the phone again, chatting with them for a few minutes and checking in with their lives. It was kinda awesome.

I basically stopped looking at my phone other than the few times I needed to check my texts. Over the course of those forty days, I often forgot where my phone was. It was just lying around somewhere: on the kitchen table, on a bookshelf, in my bedroom, in the kitchen. I didn’t care. If someone needed me, I’d hear the phone ring. Otherwise, it was of no consequence to me.

To fill my time, I read books. Lots of books. And I kept track of them in my writer’s notebook, not on Goodreads. I listened to music (part of the digital de-clutter meant that I had to give up Hulu and Netflix). I wrote in my notebook a lot. I practiced my guitar. I read adventure modules for DCC and planned out my group’s ongoing campaign. I wrote some of my novel (a.k.a.: the second book of the Merlin trilogy, a.k.a.: the book that never seems to be finished). I rediscovered just how much I love to read. I freaking LOVE to read. Not online articles, or websites, or headlines, but BOOKS. Glorious, paper-y, thick-bound books!

Once Lent ended, and I could *technically* start using the Internet again, I found myself uninterested in plugging back in. I haven’t looked at Twitter in MONTHS. Facebook never held any allure for me, but I haven’t even paid it a passing glance since going “digitally minimal.” Even sites like Goodreads and Reddit — sites that I thought I liked — have turned out to be, in reality, kinda dull. I’m not tempted to go back. Keeping track of my books in my pen-and-paper notebook, talking about them with my husband and friends, being suddenly a “private” reader — all of this has given me immense pleasure and satisfaction.

I’m not proclaiming all this in order to win accolades or put myself above others. I’m not special; I’m not better than anybody. I don’t think people who use social media are somehow lesser. But for my own part, I’m glad I’ve unplugged from Twitter and the rest. I’m glad that I only use my phone for making calls and sending the occasional text. I’m glad that I spend my time reading books and not internet news feeds. I’m a happier person — less anxious, less envious — and if it’s not too grandiose to say, I’m living a better life without all the digital clutter.

I’ll also say that the actual book that led me to de-clutter, Digital Minimalism, is not a perfect book. I think it’s too focused on productivity, too blinded toward the realities of lower income people, caregivers, and people who don’t have the same support system as Newport. So it’s not a book without some serious flaws. However, in general, its prescription for a digitally minimalist lifestyle has worked for me. For many people, their internet usage gives them satisfaction and pleasure; or at the very least, it’s value-neutral. But for me, it was kinda making me miserable. I’ve said goodbye to all that, and I’m glad of it.

Following up from my previous post, I happened to see this on Austin Kleon’s blog:

“No input, no output”

This is exactly what’s been happening with me and my fiction. I haven’t had enough “input” — whether from other fiction, movies, music, life, poetry, walks outside, whatever. It’s nice to see my theory about how ideas dry up meet some support from Kleon and the various artists he quotes. My problem right now is that I have nothing to share with the world because I haven’t been taking in enough stuff, ruminating on other people’s ideas, and diffusing all of that through my own imagination. I have no creative energy because I haven’t been feeding my creative mind.

I think for me, input is most nourishing when it’s both contemplative and active, meaning time for reading/watching/listening but also time for going outside and taking walks. I’ve been ruminating on the subject of walking lately, and I think one of the biggest changes that has happened since getting married, moving into our current house, and having kids, is that I hardly ever take solitary walks anymore. I go for walks with my husband and our kids — wonderful walks that I treasure — but I don’t take long rambles by myself where I look at the trees and come up with ideas. I used to ramble a lot when I was in my teens and twenties. I was never a hardcore hiker or anything; I just walked through shady subdivisions and quiet streets. But those shady lanes were formative for my creative ideas and imagination. I do think that my lack of solitary walking time has led to a lack of input.

But maybe it’s not the walking so much as it is the quiet time outside by myself. That is something I can do regardless of my state in life. If I wanted to, I could go outside right now while the kids are napping and sit on the deck. I could very easily go outside and hang out for a minute or two any day I choose. The question is: why don’t I? Does it seem like a waste of time? Does it seem indulgent? I do think I’ve been overcome lately by a “productivity mindset” that says every moment must be productive and useful (especially when the kids are napping). If I’m just sitting around outside, then I’m not DOING anything.

But what about doing nothing? Is there value to that? I would say that contemplative time is good; we need moments of rest, to contemplate and let our minds wander. But I’ve been caught in the web of “productivity” for so long now that I’ve forgotten how good it is to simply sit around and think. Sure, I’m thinking while I do the dishes (or whatever), but I’m still doing something; I’m maximizing my time. Bleh.

What I need to rediscover is the ability to just sit around. To not worry about getting anything done. To let a few things go undone. To daydream. To waste time — even when the kids are napping .

In a way, the daydreaming part is where the input gets turned into output. We feed ourselves all the books, poetry, nature, music, etc., but then we need to sit around and daydream, digesting the food. Once we’ve gone through the daydreaming process, then we have something to release. Then we have the output.

I know Bradbury’s answer: “Read a poem, a story, and an essay every day.” Without a deep well of “metaphors” (his word for ideas/images/stories), we dip the bucket in time and again and come up dry. That’s where I’m at right now with imaginative, fictive writing.

I’m writing plenty of nonfiction: blogging, notebook thoughts, book reviews, lesson plans and such. But my stories have become a wasteland of nothingness. No ideas. No images. No stories to tell.

I suppose I can blame my own perfectionism, the way it creeps into every crevice of my head and tells me, “No, that’s a terrible idea.” Or: “No, that’s no good. You sound like a hack.” But lately, in the last couple of weeks (since mid-May, perhaps), when I go into my head to find some words or ideas for a scene, I find nothing. Emptiness. Total blankness. Silence.

Am I not reading enough poetry? Not enough stories and novels? Not enough pleasure reading and daydreaming?

I definitely don’t do enough daydreaming. When I get a moment of quiet, I spend it reveling in the quiet and barely a thought peeps out. I’m out of practice with daydreaming, but how do I get back into practice? I know part of the problem is that I’m a worrier, and now that I’m a mom, I worry ALL THE TIME. I worry that my kids are sick, or that they’re not eating well, or that they watch too much T.V., or that something catastrophic will happen to them (unlikely stuff like a tornado hitting our house or a fire or a gas leak) (which is not to say that those things don’t sometimes happen, but the inordinate amount of time I spend worrying about them is not healthy or sane). I also worry about work, about appointments, about deadlines and bills and engagements and special events: all of the activities and responsibilities of life that weigh me down psychically. All the Things I Have to Do. Too many Things.

I have a hard time putting all of these deadlines and due dates and events out of my head and just letting go. Which is why I seldom daydream anymore. Driving to work or taking a shower are my only daydream moments, it seems. (Neither of which I do very much when school is on break for the summer. No driving to work, and fewer showers because there’s no one to watch the kids while I clean up.)

So I am stinky and lacking in daydreams.

What I could do is read more fiction and poetry. That, at least, is something I have control over. I’ve been on a nonfiction reading kick lately (and the books have been wonderful, no doubt), but maybe I need to set aside the nonfiction and get lost in a bunch of fantasy novels and Victorian poetry and even read some myths and legends again.

And maybe I need to start writing crappy dialogue and hackneyed plot devices and terrible prose and just live with it. Better to write shitty stuff than to not write at all (she said with some doubt but still with as cheery a tone as she could manage).

I go through these dark periods a lot, don’t I? Lots of “writer’s block” and lack of ideas and whinging about it on my blog. I feel bad spewing my negativity onto the Internet, but I also don’t feel bad. This is my blog. It’s my space to write my thoughts. I don’t have to put on a performance, to be “on brand,” or to sell anybody anything. If I want to whine and bitch, then I can whine and bitch. And if nobody reads it, then no big deal. I’m not trying to rack up hits or likes or anything of the sort. I’m just putting my ideas out into the world and perhaps someone will stumble upon them and see a kindred soul. Or not.

Anyway, I should probably write some bad fiction now. Let all my adjectives be shitty and all my characters cliche!

For readers of my newsletter, I mentioned that I had written several thousand words of the Merlin half of this book and then decided to scrap it all and start over again. This is the first rewrite of that Merlin section. In some ways, I feel that it’s stronger than what I had before, but there are some moments from the earlier draft — and some ideas — that I kinda miss. The overall idea for the Merlin section is better now (I totally reconfigured how the chess game worked and what Merlin needed to do in order to play it), but there’s a part of me that misses some of the old stuff. I had some fun banter between characters, some imagery that I really loved, and some tense-y tension that was meant to set up future conflicts. It’s all gone now, lost inside a Scrivener file that will most likely never see the light of day…

Rewriting — or re-drafting from scratch — can be such a strange experience. The new stuff is often better, but there’s also a kind of grief that comes from losing the old stuff. Not all the old stuff: some of it is total crap. But the old stuff that *was* good, that had freshness and beauty. That’s the stuff that’s hard to let go. I am almost tempted to put the earlier draft side-by-side with this new draft, but then I worry that judgments and comparisons between the two will only stifle what I’m doing. I can’t look back. Not at this stage. At the drafting stage, looking back and comparing versions can often be debilitating for me. I start to question myself too much. At some point, I just have to trust my taste as a reader to discern which version is better and then go for it. At this point, the version below is the one I think is better. It’s the one I’m going with. For now.

Chapter 2: “Memories”

Merlin woke up and flexed his hand.

His staff was gone, his magic too. He was empty. Fumbling for his headphone, he put them on and pressed play. The music drowned his thoughts. He was sitting at the foot of a steep hill, and all around him swirled a sea of fog. He knew he was inside the chess game, but what he was supposed to do, how the game was supposed to work, he couldn’t fathom.

“Which is ridiculous,” he said to himself. He stood up and absentmindedly felt for the sack of unending on his belt. It was still there, but Merlin knew it wasn’t filled with much. Some books, some talismans that would be useless now that his magic was gone. No more thorns. Nothing.

Empty.

He felt the puncture marks under his arm, the tracks of his last-ditch effort to channel the magic of the elements. Scars that taunted him. He flexed his hand again and remembered the warmth of his oaken staff. He had his hands, his arms, all his limbs and senses. But he felt like a man who had lost a leg or an eye. He had his desire to do magic — he willed it with every fiber of his being — but his body would not comply. The elements had abandoned him. He was helpless. Powerless.

Merlin turned the volume up on his cassette player. There was no use standing around. He began the trudge up the hill.
There was no sign of his opponent, no sign of his army. He was inside a chess game, but Merlin had no king, no rooks, no pawns, nothing. He tried to remember the centuries ago when he had first crafted the game, a feat of magic that used all his skills of glamour, all his powers for crafting talismans. He couldn’t have done it without the power of his staff. He remembered doing it, but he couldn’t remember how it worked.

The crest of the hill approached. Merlin could see the sky widening above him, the fog drifting up into the clouds above. Atop the hill, spreading its branches out wide like the arms of a dozen waking giants, sat a great oak tree, brown and bright green and thick as a castle tower. The first thing Merlin noticed was the huge sword stuck in the trunk of the tree. The second thing he noticed was Taliesin sitting on a stone chair underneath it.

The bard smiled as Merlin approached. There was a stone table in front of him and another stone chair sitting empty across from him. On the table sat the chess board, gleaming gold and covered in one set of raven-black pieces. Taliesin’s pieces.
The black ivory jogged a memory. The raven pieces of Gwenddolau, the ancient lord who Merlin had made the chess game for all those centuries ago. The lord who had lost the game to Rhydderch the generous, and lost the Sword as well.
Merlin flicked off his cassette player and walked over to the bard. “You picked the wrong pieces,” he said.

Taliesin looked older than Merlin, but Merlin still thought of the man as the youth who had come to him looking for power and knowledge.

“I thought you’d never come,” Taliesin said.

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Take a seat so we can begin.” Taliesin nodded at the stone chair opposite. “I’ve given you white.”

“The young man’s pieces,” Merlin remembered. “Rhydderch’s.” He walked over to the chair and saw the leather pouch resting on it. He picked it up and opened it. Inside were pieces of white ivory. Merlin sat down and started to set his pieces on the golden board.

“I thought this was a living chess game,” said Taliesin.

“So did I.”

Taliesin raised an eyebrow. “But didn’t you make the game?”

“Yes, for Gwenddolau, a minor lord of old Britain. But I never played it. And he never spoke of it.”

“Embarrassed by his loss, perhaps?”

“Perhaps. He played the black, you know. Rhydderch defeated him with these very pieces.” Merlin placed his last piece on the board. The queen.

“I’ve been generous then. I hope you have worse luck.”

“Does luck have anything to do with it?”

Taliesin looked up at the Sword that hung over them. “A Sword to strike a god.”

“I guess you’ve already tried pulling it out,” Merlin replied.

Taliesin nodded. “Unsuccessfully.”

“Of course. And no spell would work?”

“None. A clever bit of magic, Merlin. Hiding it in the game, keeping it as a prize for the winner.”

“I was always good at magic.”

“And yet magic won’t help you here.” Taliesin gestured at the game board, the pieces arrayed on each side. “We must play, nothing more, nothing less.”

Merlin didn’t answer. Somehow he knew there was more to their game. A sudden reluctance — a fear — crept into his heart.

“White begins,” Taliesin said as he sat back in his chair. His body relaxed, his legs extended. He let his arms rest comfortably, one hand on his thigh, the other dangling by his side. His lips held a slight smile while his eyes stared unblinking at Merlin.

Merlin looked down at the board and waited. He vaguely knew which move to start with, but something held him back.

“Or you could quit this folly and rejoin the gods you once served,” Taliesin said. “It’s up to you.” The smile curled into a smirk.

Merlin met the bard’s gaze. “The gods who killed you?”

A darkness passed over Taliesin’s face. His smile vanished. “Make your move, Merlin.”

“No use over-thinking it, is there?” Merlin didn’t flinched. His fingers reached for a pawn, ready to move it forward two spaces. But as soon as his skin touched the ivory, everything around him flashed out of sight. The tree, the stone table, the golden board, the dark face of Taliesin — everything was gone.

Merlin was running. He was reaching up to grab the rough bark of a tree limb. He was laughing, smiling at the dog that ran at his heels. A mutt. Happy slobber hung from its lips and tongue. Eyes danced as they looked up at Merlin. Merlin was climbing the tree, the dog jumping to catch him, the green leaves brushing his skin, hiding the sun’s harsh glare. The oak tree. His first. The secret world of leaf and limb, the web of strong bark and ever-extending branches.

Merlin relived the memory even as he seemed to be watching it from afar: the first time he had climbed a tree. He looked down with his seven-year-old eyes, smiled at the joyful dog at the base of the tree, laughed with the drunkenness of freedom.

Merlin’s fingers jerked away from the ivory pawn. The memory vanished. The game piece rattled uneasily but didn’t topple. When it had stopped teetering, there was silence. It was still in its starting position.

Out of breath, Merlin looked up to see Taliesin staring at him. “I saw—“ Merlin began, but he couldn’t finish.

Taliesin leaned closer, curiosity replacing his former enmity. “Your eyes went white. Cloudy like a blind man’s.”

“I was gone. Back into the past.”

“A memory?”

“It was as real as you are. A moment from my childhood.”

Taliesin sat back again, the smile returning. “Curious. But it’s still your move.”

Merlin realized he had not actually moved the pawn. But when he went to pick it up again, he flinched. It had been a pleasant memory — one of the best memories of his life, long-buried but strong — but there was an intensity to such a memory, he wasn’t sure he wanted to relive it again.

“Move, Merlin.”

He had no choice. He looked up and saw the Sword of Rhydderch hanging over him, taunting him. He picked up the pawn again and pushed it forward two squares.

Nothing happened. No memory, no oak tree, no dancing dog.

“You haven’t played in awhile, have you?” Taliesin asked.

“Does it show?”

“I was hoping for more of a challenge. I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment.”

“Student against master?”

“Something like that, yes.”

Merlin flexed his hand. Still empty. Still useless without the oaken staff to hold. “What are you waiting for? Finish me and end my desperate quest.”

But now Taliesin hesitated. His hand hung above the pieces on the board, unsure of what would happen should skin touch ivory.
Merlin hated the hesitation and the silence. He suddenly couldn’t help but hate the man sitting across from him. There was too much to forgive. “Should we get it out of the way now? While you’re pondering your opening move?”

Taliesin stopped and scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The conversation where you explain what in all the various hells is happening. Where you tell me why you’re alive and why you’re serving the old gods. The story of how we ended up here, with me on one side and you on the other. The Cath Palug, the half-dwarf, the Thirteen Treasures. All of it.”

“Oh, Merlin.” Taliesin laid his hands in his lap. “I wasn’t sure I recognized you. No beard. No hair even. So much younger than I remembered. And yet your arrogance is unmistakable.”

“I’m arrogant because I want to know the truth?”

“Because you think you deserve it. As if knowing the why means you can control this situation.”

“I don’t want control, Taliesin. I want to understand. We shouldn’t even be on opposite sides.”

“You’re right. You should be working with me to resurrect Manawydan. You should be making the sacrifices by my side to bring back Rhiannon. You should be opening the gateway yourself to welcome Gwyn ap Nudd to the land of the living. And yet you sit there and strive to win the Sword that can wound our masters. You are the traitor, Merlin. Not me. And that is all there is to tell.” A spell of flame — forged by rage — sprang to Merlin’s lips. But there was no power inside him to call forth the flame, no friendship to help the flame hear him. The spell died even before it had been born.

“Make your move,” Merlin said.

Taliesin picked up his knight and his eyes turned black. His body froze. Merlin watched as he entered some kind of trance.
And then in a moment the trance was over. Taliesin’s hand had moved the knight. His arm was shaking as he pulled it back across the board.

“A memory?” said Merlin.

Taliesin nodded.

“A good one?”

No answer. But the bard’s body was no longer relaxed. He didn’t lean back in his chair; instead, he leaned forward, elbows on the stone table, eyes fixed upon the board.

“Well, at least we’re starting to figure out the magic of the game,” said Merlin brightly. Taliesin’s unease gave him confidence.

“Your move, Merlin.”

“Not even a hint of what you saw?” Merlin looked over the board and wondered whether to move another pawn or one of his own knights.

“Just play the game.”

“I thought I was. Did you see a memory from your childhood? I wonder if that’s how it works. The game tries to distract us with memories from our past.”

“Are you trying to distract me now?” Taliesin growled. “It won’t work.”

Merlin’s hand hovered over his knight. “Not at all. Just filling the silence with some chatter. Maybe you can play a tune when it’s my turn. Something pleasant. Or else, maybe I’ll put my headphones back on.” He held up the portable cassette player.

Taliesin raised an eyebrow.

“Haven’t gotten out much since you’ve been back? I can understand. It must be busy work trying to plan out the destruction of your homeland.”

“You have very little understanding, Merlin. Neither I nor the ones I serve seek to destroy Britain. We simply want to restore it.”

“To a hellish nightmare of chaos and unrestrained, unrelenting power? Somehow I doubt the people of Britain would welcome that restoration.”

“I don’t care about the people of Britain.”

“Spoken like a true servant of the old ones.”

“Just make your move.”

Merlin resisted the aggressive move with his knight. Instead he moved another pawn.

Pain seared his mind. Red flaming eyes flashed in a torch-lit darkness. Screams. A woman crying out. Then a baby’s tortured squeals, and the heavy breathless panting of a woman after labor. The flaming eyes flashed once more, then darkness, and orange shadows on the wall. A hovel, an earthen house, a bed of musty straw. A gentle hand across the baby’s cheek, a warm kiss, and then the softness of a breast.

Merlin blinked and then returned to the stone table and the game. He found himself holding his breath.

“And will you tell me what memory came this time?” said Taliesin. He had a cruel look of satisfaction on his face.

Merlin managed to breath again, heaving in two gulps of air. “No,” he said through dry lips.

How could he speak of such things to Taliesin? How could he ever explain? How was it even possible that he should see and relive such a memory?

Merlin couldn’t explain. All he knew was that he did not want to touch that pawn again. The power of that memory was too much. Too deep.

Merlin looked down at the board. The pieces were all in their squares, each space on the board was ordered and measured. But what the game contained could not be measured. It was not orderly or even logical. It contained the faded, messy, inscrutableness of memory — memory brought to vivid life. The game was life. Merlin’s life — and Taliesin’s — brought back from the depths of forgetfulness and time. To relive these moments, even for a second, was almost too excruciating to contemplate.
Merlin looked at the game, heart pounding, and realized what it would cost him to play.

He was not sure he wanted to pay such a price.