ROW80 update

1. Be a ROW80 sponsor.
Ugh. Totally failed last week at checking other people's blogs, commenting, and writing my own post. I blame life. Will do better this week.

But on the bright side, my guest post, "You can't get there from here," went up today on the ROW80 blog. Woo hoo!
 
2. Write my chapter of the chain story I mentioned in this post. 
Still waiting for it. Still not ready to write it when it does come.

3. Do three public readings.
On Friday I attended the second Fridays on the Boulevard open mic at The Attic Institute and was chosen to read. Woot! I read "Like a Woman in Love" and this other, short poem that originally appeared, untitled, in a post on my World Citizen blog:

Book recommendation, ROW80 check-in

Before I do anything else, I want to recommend the book Wedlocked by Jay Ponteri. In a nutshell, it's a memoir about a man who suffers from depression and feels a lack of connection both with himself and with his wife and ends up having emotional affairs with other women.  I finished reading it this week. It's incredibly sad, but also incredibly interesting and, in a way, hopeful. It offers a model for being truly honest with ourselves and others...which perhaps is a bit ironic, since the narrator admits to lying so much to himself and to his wife.

I will admit that I probably wouldn't even know about this book were it not for the fact that I used to work with Jay. Regardless, I maintain that it's an incredibly worthwhile read, especially for those who wish to write honestly and openly about their experiences as human beings, especially those experiences with which our culture is intensely uncomfortable to the point of deafening silence.

What I'm saying is that this book has inspired me to write creative non-fiction again and to be honest with myself and others about my feelings and experiences. There is no greater gift.

Okay. Now here's my progress on my ROW80 goals this week:

A fool in April

It's Day 1 of Round 2 of A Round of Words in 80 Days, and I'm already behind.

What were my goals again? Copied & pasted from my last post:

Goals for Round 2

1. Be a sponsor! =*D I mentioned this a couple weeks ago. Very excited.
2. Write my chapter of the chain story I mentioned in this post.
3. Do three public readings. Two are already scheduled. Third one will probably be an open mic.
4. Continue to try to get more involved in the local writing community: attend more readings, go down and check out The Attic Institute, participate in a writing group.
5. Continue to write monthly articles for VoiceCatcher.
6. Focus on my pseudonym's novel.
7. Try to stop trying to do too much. [Emphasis added.]

Oh, man. This is going to be a tough one. My to-do list for today had 19 items on it. I got nine of them done--10 counting this blog post--and a bunch of other stuff that wasn't even on the list. I seriously need to learn to prioritize.

And at the time I originally posted the above list, I'd forgotten about one more goal: apply for writing fellowships/grants as part of my strategy for making writing pay.

And it's a "secret" goal of mine to get back to those five short stories I was working on last round after I finish up my pseudonym's novel next month. "Secret" meaning I'm pretending it's not a goal, but it really is.

Try to do too much? Who, me? Naaaahhhh... o_O

Update at six minutes to midnight: 11 items on today's to-do list accomplished. Just finished checking in on my assigned ROW80 participants and commenting on their posts. Go, me! *weakly raises fist in air, then collapses into bed*

So you want to be a writer

Somewhere once I read that some famous writer said something like, "If you want to be a writer, then write." It is that easy, but it's also not that easy. I mean, if it were really that easy, then we would all be writers already, right?

Some people think the way to become a writer is by studying how other people have done it and learning all the "rules" to "good" writing. You can spend years reading books on how to write. Others think you have to have a degree in creative writing in order to call yourself a writer.

And these people who say that a "real" writer writes because s/he is compelled to and can't not write...I kind of want to punch these people in the face (not that I would ever). 'Cause I have it in me and it really wants to come out, and also it's a terrifying thing to try to articulate and organize the mental chaos and watch it come out on paper (or in a text box) and witness how different it looks outside the head as compared to inside.