The Struggling Writer’s Prayer

I'm in the middle of my current WIP and, given how much My Hockey Mom's Prayer has resonated with the struggles of one aspect of my life, I thought I'd jot down another prayer to get me (and hopefully some of you) through the struggle that is writing a book. I hope you get through your first draft relatively unscathed. I'm in the thick of the battle and I hope to see you on the other side!

The Struggling Writer's Prayer

May I find the strength today to open up my document and not be completely paralyzed by the blankness of the page.

May I grant myself forgiveness if I don’t reach a milestone word count, page count, hours count. Sometimes it is enough to just stare at the page, knowing it is there, and that I have gathered the strength to face it.

May I kick myself in the butt hard enough to write down a word, a sentence, a paragraph, even if I think it is horrible.

May I find the strength of will not to immediately delete the word, the sentence, the paragraph, even if I think it is horrible.

May I have the grace to accept the limitations of my writing, the intelligence to recognize its faults, and the determination to keep working at it to make it better.

May I take the time to celebrate the small successes, like finishing a chapter, figuring out the next plot point, or describing a scene.

May I have the courage to kill my darling, hard-fought-for words, and not think I am regressing. May I remember that sometimes to win a war you must retreat in battle and re-group so that the next attack comes out harder, more strategized and infinitely improved.

And, most of all, may I remember that I am not alone, even though it seems like it. That other writers are facing that blank page, those horrible words, that awful immensity of the challenge ahead and that they are there to offer support, humour, wisdom and, most importantly, wine and chocolate. That one day, the blank page will be filled, that despair will turn to elation, that you will have climbed the mountain and can sit at its peak, drinking your wine and eating that chocolate, and know, in that most fulfilling part of yourself, that you have written a book.

Am I Flogging a Dead Blog?

“Hello?” *Tap, Tap* “Anybody still out there?”

I won’t be offended by silence if no one responds. After all, I have definitely withdrawn on the blogging business the last few months. But I realized recently that it was four years ago this month that I began blogging. Four years! Holy cow. So much change in four years. Back when I started Out of the Wordwork in 2009, I recognized even then that I was quite late to the game and I joined a bit reluctantly but it was still quite a momentous step for me in terms of entering the social media whirl that was part and parcel of the publishing game. Back then (back in the ‘old days’ Nelsa said in a quavery voice) you almost had to play that game to show potential publishers you were willing to market yourself. But these days, a blog? Meh. Maybe not so relevant.

I get it. There is already so much information out there on writing and publishing what more can another writer add? Besides, Twitter and Facebook have become the networking communication medium of choice amongst writers so a blog seems unnecessary. And I am certainly struggling with whether to keep this one going. But I’m struggling with a lot of things about publishing and writing these days – social networking is the least of it.

I’ve even gotten a sense from Facebook and Twitter that many writers are either taking breaks from social networking or lessening their time on those mediums significantly. Maybe it’s the general angst about the book publishing industry and the intensity with which writers must keep pushing in the face of so many obstacles these days that putting pressure on yourself to write a blog for the sake of writing a blog seems foolish. There is so much information out there already that sometimes you feel like you’re just adding to the noise. These days I want less noise not more, hence the title of this post: why keep flogging a dead blog?

In any case, for all those who still occasionally check in I can’t promise many future posts but I hope you peruse some of the posts from the past. There are a few that many people do find helpful/inspirational or just plain silly. And for those hockey mom’s out there my Hockey Mom Prayer post is the little post that keeps on going! Shared so many times on Facebook and such that I’m amazed. So I guess blogging can sometimes be useful. At least I’ve got a pretty neat record of my life these last four years!

See you soon (or not!) :)

Family Stories that Become Legend

My brother is a very good story teller. Could be from all his years hanging out at sports bars but mostly it’s because he’s a voracious reader and he loves a good story himself so he recognizes the elements of good storytelling and incorporates them into his tales. He especially loves telling my kids stories of our family as he and I were growing up and, since he’s a few years older than me, has a wealth of funny, embarrassing tales that have kept the kids entertained at otherwise boring family events. The one story that my kids loved hearing the most involves him as a sullen 14 year old, his dark, miserable chore of feeding and taking care of thousands of nasty chickens in a three-storey old chicken barn, and our taciturn, work-is-life attitude, father. I don’t know if I’ll ever use this story in any novel I might write but I want to share it because, like all good family stories, they should be shared.

When my brother was 13, my father moved us from northern Ontario to live and work in a small farming community in southern Ontario. But not only did my dad buy a farm, he bought a farm with a chicken barn on it. It wasn’t going to be just working our butts off in the summer, it would be an all year commitment since caring for chickens and their eggs is an every day, seven days a week, prison of a life. My parents and brother did this for three years before finally getting rid of this thankless business venture.

But for those three years, my brother was a slave. He had gone from a carefree existence of skating on frozen ponds and lakes and running around with his friends from dawn till dusk with barely anyone telling him what to do to working from dawn till dusk, chickens attacking him on a daily basis, and a growing resentment and anger toward the man who had caused this massive and unwanted upheaval in his life. Over the days, weeks and months of feeding and cleaning after these chickens, my brother grew to especially hate one bird – a rooster actually. While chickens are certainly nasty and think nothing of pecking and attacking the hands that feed them, roosters are especially lethal. This one rooster was very territorial and as soon as he saw my brother enter the barn he would fly at him and try to peck him out of the way. He had even drawn blood. My brother equally hated and feared this rooster with a passion.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, he told my dad about this one psychotic bird. But Dad just shrugged him off and thought he was trying to get out of work. “Bah! It’s only a chicken! Deal with it.” (or something to that effect only stated in Portuguese) He would have said it in that gruff, dismissive tone he had. While our dad is a sweetheart, at that time in his life he was operating on survival mode and there was no time for coddling children especially his first born son. In his mind, to become a man, meant to work hard, do a good job and never complain about it. Needless to say, this dismissive response to my brother’s serious problem caused him to resent our dad even more. But, like a good son, he continued to do his chores every day, defended himself from the attacking rooster as best he could and kept his simmering anger to himself.

One day, Dad had to fix a broken heating lamp in the chicken barn. So, while my brother was feeding the chickens on the floor where this rooster kept vigil, my dad joined him. As Dad took out a screwdriver to repair the lamp, the psycho rooster lunged out of the darkness and flung himself at my father. My dad, surprised at the attack, kicked the rooster away, cursing at him. My brother kept feeding the chickens. He laughed silently to himself, thinking “Yeah, old man. Maybe you’ll believe me now.”

Dad continued to try and fix the lamp but the rooster didn’t back off. It kept lunging and attacking him. My brother was really enjoying the show at this point. Finally, my dad had had enough. As the rooster was about to lunge at him again, he pulled out his screwdriver, threw it across the barn, speared the attacking rooster in the neck, killing him instantly.

My brother’s mouth dropped. He watched in awe and amazement as our father walked over to the dead rooster, pulled the screwdriver out of his neck, calmly wiped the blood off on his overalls and turned to my brother and said, “Tell your mother we’re having chicken for dinner tonight.”

Moral of the story #1: when you have a problem, don’t complain, figure out how to deal with it yourself.

Moral of the story #2: don’t piss off a man with a screwdriver.

So, what’s your family legend?