Sunday, November 30, 2008

Giving Thanks

Obvious topic, I know, but a good one.

Here is my stream of consciousness list of things for which I am grateful:

1. My in-laws, who sure know how to party down at weddings.
2. My upcoming trip to Disney World
3. Christmas
4. Advent
5. Thanksgiving
6. My Grandmom Wade
7. My Grandmom Owsik
8. Stuffing
9. Gravy
10. Cranberry sauce
11. Champagne
12. Earth, Wind, and Fire
13. Manhattan
14. The Bronx
15. Mike's Pizza
16. Writer friends
17. My novel
18. Pat Rogers, S.J.
19. Any rockin' dance floor
20. My 1997 Cadillac Catera
21. River Side East hot dog stand in Elmwood Park, NJ.
22. My four nephews and two nieces
23. My buddy Julian and his awesome dance moves
24. New friends
25. Old friends
26. My new tv
27. My repurposed armoire, now holding our new tv
28. My warm and cozy house
29. My little collages that decorate my house
30. My cozy bed
31. Feathers to wear in my hair
32. Black sequin clutch purses
33. A 15 year old dress that still looks good and still fits
34. Weddings
35. Choirs
36. Trumpets
37. Funky dresses on Manhattan girls
38. Brothers and sisters in law
39. Chihauhaus
40. Maggie the puppy
41. Cousins that feel like siblings
42. Brothers
43. Parents
44. Narberth
45. Beaujeaulais nouveau (sp?)
46. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
47. The New Yorker
48. Fordham University
49. Suzy Lutjen O'Connor
50. Mermaids

What are you grateful for?

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Comparing Myself With Myself

Today my writer friend Claire asked me how the book was going. "It's going really well," I said. "I had a great writing session today, I feel very excited about the scene I'm editing." I was full of enthusiasm. Then I said, "Well, but it never feels like enough."

Which is true. No matter how much I work on the book in a given day, it doesn't feel like enough. As I kept talking I realized that all this time, I've been comparing myself with other writers, like Cormac McCarthy, who goes to an office, and works an 8 hour day on his novels (at least according to his nephew, who told me this.) Talking to Claire today I realized that I have been beating myself up all year because I don't follow the McCarthy schedule. (And I hated the only book of his I've read!)

My dirty little secret is that on days I don't have to go to my job, I spend somewhere around two hours working on the book. Some days I have two two-hour sessions, some days, when I'm really feeling it, I'll work four straight. But on an average day, about two hours is what I spend writing and revising, with maybe some research or administrative stuff in addition. And, I guess I can count time I spend thinking about the book while walking and time for Artist Dates to refuel my imagination, so maybe add a few more hours a week for that. And if I'm being very generous with myself, I would count time I spend meditating, food shopping, preparing meals, and generally taking care of myself so that I can write. And then if you add in the time I spend reading, and writing this blog, I guess I get a lot closer to a full-time work schedule.

Even still the (inner) critic says, "Well, maybe the book would be done already if you spent eight hours a day on it." When the critic speaks I look for the fear. In this case, I'm afraid that I'm wasting time. That I'm not finishing fast enough. But when I look at these fears rationally, I see that I'm not wasting much time, just a normal amount, and that fast enough is a relative term. I didn't finish fast enough to prevent me having to go back to work, but that's okay. And if I'm still not done in a few months, when this job is over, I'll get another job. ("In this economy?" asks the critic. He's such a downer.)

What I need to do is let go of the outcome. Let go of my worry about what will happen to the book when it's done, and just keep taking my next small step. The book is incubating in my mind and heart and soul, and it responds much better to small and gentle goals than to me screaming at it to hurry up already.

So maybe it's okay to only write for two hours a day, at least for now. Maybe slow motion really will get me there faster. I need to stop comparing myself to other writers and do what works for me. If I compare myself now to myself of a few years ago, now I write almost every day for at least an hour. That's a hell of a lot more writing than I used to do. So I'm making progress. I need to remember that there are many different paths to the same place. And I think if I can muster up a little more faith and a little more confidence, I'll be more productive, even if it is only for two hours a day.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Encouragement from Dead Authors

“Well, I tell you these things to show you that working is not grinding but a wonderful thing to do; that creative power is in all of you if you give it just a little time; if you believe in it a little bit and watch it come quietly into you; if you do not keep it out by always hurrying and feeling guilty in those times when you should be lazy and happy. Or if you do not keep the creative power away by telling yourself that worst of lies—that you haven’t any.”

The above quote is from a book called If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland. I came across it in my attic last week, and found myself standing in that dusty sunlit room, absorbed into its pages for so long that Carl wondered what had happened to me and came looking. My parents bought this book for me when they came to visit me in San Diego in 1999. We went walking at the beautiful park called Embarcadero, down on the water, but still close to downtown. There’s a small book store there, the kind with floor to ceiling shelves, stacks of books haphazardly arrayed and a coffee bar squeezed into the middle of the chaos. I’m sure we spent a happy hour in there, (my mom and I could easily pass days in bookstores in complete contentment) and we left with several purchases, including If You Want to Write.

I had determined in 1999, while living in San Diego, that I wanted to be a writer. But then, in the upheaval of moving back to Philadelphia, getting my first real job, my first real apartment, and generally trying to grow up, writing got lost. I kept a journal, off and on, I wrote poems here or there. I even took a writing class where I worked on some short stories. But then I found myself in law school, my creative writer in some sort of coma.

Thankfully, the bar exam was just the horrible impetus I needed to start my novel. I stole sweet hours from my studying to conjure up characters, to name them, to begin to write their story. And then I got a job, and let the novel rot in my computer, untouched for two years.

Since I’ve started working on the novel again, I’ve often felt bad about the lost time. If I had started seriously writing in 1999, how much further would I be now? I know regret is pointless, and beating myself up is unhealthy, but it has been hard to shake a feeling of loss over all that time I could have been writing. This week, I found some comfort in another book, a biography of Jane Austen where I learned that she had a seven year period when she didn’t write at all, after she wrote her first three novels, before any of them had been published. As I tried to figure out my own fallow period, I wondered about Jane’s. Why didn’t she write for all that time? We don’t know, maybe Jane didn’t know, but knowing that she had a long dry spell with writing makes me feel better about mine.

I am grateful to Jane Austen for her beautiful work, for inspiration, for her courage, persistence and faith. And I am grateful for having found Brenda Ueland’s little book, not just for the wisdom and encouragement contained within its covers, but also for the memory of that sunny afternoon in San Diego, absorbing love from my parents, a long way from home and a short way from adulthood.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

In My Tribe



I've been thinking over the past few weeks of the tribes to which I belong. For example, I was born an Owsik. See evidence of this in the above pictures. There is no mistaking the Owsik profile, shown on my brothers and dad in the first picture, and myself in the second. There was a time when I hated my nose, but now, I love it. I love that it marks me as part of my tribe.

Another of my tribes, the lawyers, I tried to escape, but they have pulled me back in, at least somewhat. I've accepted a job at my law school, which feels very different than working at a law firm, but is still is within the tribe. How has this tribe marked me? Well, I read almost everything before I sign it. I am overly cautious and skeptical, some may say paranoid. And yes, very very competitive, which to be fair, was part of me before I joined the tribe.

The tribe I am happiest to belong to this week is the Philadelphia Phillies Fan tribe. The marks of the Phillies tribe? We spell everything with a "ph" instead of "f," making us "phans." We boo as passionately as we cheer, yes, even our own team when they deserve it, and we are pessimistic to the point of despair.

But when we were up 3 games to 1 in the World Series last week, and we were playing Game 5 at home, with our ace pitcher on the mound, even we, who had been disappointed so many times before--we are the team with 10,000 losses--we began to believe. The city was covered in Phillies red that day. The air smelled cleaner, people everywhere smiled at each other, said things like, “We are gonna do it tonight!” The optimism was palpable.

And then the rains came.

They played 5 1/2 innings in the pouring rain, only to have the game suspended once it was tied. And there it was. The familiar sense of doom. Once again our team would collapse, disappoint. We had been foolish to hope for anything else. For two days we held our breath. I didn't discuss the game with any of the other super phans, too scared that we had jinxed it with our uncharacteristic optimism.

And then, in a strange, very short finish, they won. In Game 5, part 2, at home.

I may still be in shock. I watched the champagne spraying, the smiles, the near-riots on Broad Street, all the while not sure what this unfamiliar feeling was—it was the feeling of winning.

On Friday I went to celebrate with my tribe, which included the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen at any event in Philly. And sure, some were imposters, just college students looking for a reason to get drunk in daylight, and I did at times fear a death by trampling, but it was worth it. I had to thank the team that, at least for right now, has made Philly feel like winners again. It's been a long time.

Is it too much to ask that my Democratic tribe take back the White House tonight? I think not. Winning is something I could get used to.