Writing

Writing is hard work. Many of us picture a writer as someone happily sitting at the keyboard in his studio in a New England country home dashing off page after page of perfect prose. I suppose it is that way for a handful of acclaimed novelists, but for everyone else it is moments of inspiration connected by hours of drudgery.

Until I became a writer myself, I had no idea just how hard it is. Thousands upon thousands of hours go into writing a novel. Endless writing and rewriting. Sometimes it is necessary to discard huge volumes of completed work because it isn’t working well, or doesn’t fit into the larger picture. Sometimes a project seems so overwhelming that only the most disciplined, dedicated, or hungry writers keep slogging away at it.

Writing is also very personal. Writing can not be done in a vacuum. All of the best stories you have read were based on the writer’s own life – his or her experiences, feelings, personality – as well as the people in the writer’s life. Sometimes this is obvious; sometimes it is subtle. They may be creating fictional characters but those characters are based on bits and pieces of real people.

Jennifer Bell, the author of Going Down, told her students that if you are not ready to offend the people you know, if you are not ready to lose some of your friends, you are not ready to write. The needs of the story have priority over how people will feel about the way you have portrayed them.

But even more than how your friend’s play into the work, the writer’s own psyche is exposed for all to see. When we put our words out there for others to read, whether it be in a published work, or during a critique in a workshop, it is not just our writing that is set up like a giant target to be torn to shreds; it is our very souls that are on display.

There have been times that I had to fight to keep from shaking while my work was discussed. I’m not the only writing student who has felt that. I have seen some students burst into tears – not because of anything that was said about their words, but because they had written about things that opened old wounds, things that dredged up deep emotions from their past. Now these things were layed out for all the world to witness.

I suspect that the best writers are those that can keep going, wounded and terrified, filled with doubt, to somehow finish their work. Anything less would result in a compromised story, one not worth reading.

The Year in Review

Last January, when I began this blog, I never intended it to be a diary. I had loftier ambitions. I wanted to write the kind of articles that, in more skillful hands (and perhaps better connected hands), you might find in The New Yorker. That might seem presumptuous but I never assumed that I was that talented; it was just a goal to work towards. The most important thing for me was to develop the discipline to meet my self imposed deadline – a new article every Wednesday. I am pleased, and surprised, that throughout this past year I have met that goal. This is the fifty-sixth entry in “The Bitter Old Queen.”

I am happy that I have received many responses from readers. Some have sent emails to me. I have also received feedback on Facebook and to a lesser extent in comments posted directly into the blog. Blogger does not make it easy to enter comments so I especially appreciate those readers who have persevered and submitted their thoughts.

I got the most reaction, and most of it was negative, from “Reflections on Vallarta”, published on March 31. Many regular visitors to Puerto Vallarta, along with expatriates who live there, took great exception to what they read as a condemnation of their version of Paradise. The point of the article was that our perceptions of a place can not be separated from what is happening in our lives at the time. In this case I had just broken up with my partner, who I had met and lived with in Vallarta before he came to live with me in New York. When I returned to Vallarta after the breakup I saw it more objectively, both the good and the not so pretty, rather than through the eyes of a man in love. Perhaps some of the recently arrived foreigners need to remove their rose colored glasses and see it more objectively as well. They may discover that they like it even more.

My most read, or at least accessed, article was “Miss Columbia”, posted on June 2.  It was about a contest for Latino drag queens. I was surprised that it has received ten times more page views than any other article I posted. It turns out that most of the traffic came from Google searches for the terms, not surprisingly, “Miss Columbia.” My article comes in at number ten on a list of 2,280,000 results. Just think how surprised the devotees of the Señorita Colombia (Concurso Nacional de Belleza) must have been to find themselves reading about two fat old homosexuals listening to bullfrogs in a campground in Pennsylvania.

Another article that got a lot of response, and this time overwhelmingly positive, was “The Rescue”, posted on November 3. This was the story of how I rescued two abandoned cats from a campground in the Poconos. I’m happy to say that one of them is living with me here in New York and the other has been adopted by one of my camping buddies. They are both doing well and have turned out to be delightful pets. I have since taken training classes and been certified by the City of New York to participate in the Trap-Neuter-Return program. TNR is the most successful and humane way of dealing with the severe overpopulation of stray cats living on the city’s streets.

Most of my readers are in the United States. I also have readers in Canada, Mexico, and the U.K. but Google Stats reveals a few surprises. For example, I have had page hits from Austria, Ukraine, Croatia, India and throughout central and south America. (I suspect many of the latter were looking for Miss Columbia.)

I think a few of the articles turned out quite well. I have listed my favorites in the sidebar to the left. If you missed them the first time around you might want to sample one or two of them now.

I took up blogging as a way of continuing my effort to improve as a writer. I have also taken several classes at the New York Writers Workshop. One thing I have learned in the workshops, as well as in writing this blog, is that my best writing occurs whenever I write from the heart. It is often painful to reveal myself personally. I have written about things that have opened old wounds and I have exposed myself in a way that leaves me embarrassed, humbled, and vulnerable at times. But, in doing so, I have occasionally written things that have resonated with readers. That is, of course, the ultimate goal of every writer.

So I close this year by saying something that I could never have said last January. It is simple and yet it is an affirmation that I have accomplished something important to me even though, at times, it was very much in doubt. I think I can now say it: I am a writer.

Thank you for hanging with me through this process of learning and discovery. I hope you will stay with me as the journey continues in the new year.

Oh Christmas Tree!

I hate Christmas. There, I said it. Bah-fucking-humbug.

We all know that Christmas is an over-hyped gimmick to prop up the sagging retail industry and to somehow revive our economy by promoting wanton consumerism. (Although it seems more likely to help China’s economy than our own.)

This is the time of the year when suicides and psychiatric hospital admissions spike. For many, it is not a happy time. There is an expectation that we are supposed to be happy, more happy than usual, at Christmas. When it doesn’t live up to expectations, we feel more down than ever.

Not everyone lives in a house that looks like the Currier and Ives illustration on the front of a Christmas card. The snow, if there is any, is more likely to be slushy and dirty. The woodland was cut down a century ago to make way for farms and orchards and more recently for planned “estate” communities. Sitting in a traffic jam in an SUV is a far cry from a one horse open sleigh.

Christmas has never been a happy time for me. As a child, my sisters and I used to dread it. Our obsessive-compulsive dad would put up the same white artificial tree each year. He would allow us to assist in putting up red balls (all the identical shade of red) scolding us if we were not careful to graduate them from small at the top to large at the bottom. Those red balls were the only things we were allowed to put on the tree. He aimed a red spotlight on the red balls. He liked the uniformity and simplicity of it. Our obsessive-compulsive mother liked not having anything messy that might detract from her immaculately clean living room. The tree itself was disruptive enough.

We did not have a happy family but at Christmas we were supposed to play the role of happy children. We would dutifully make wish lists for Santa Claus, carefully editing to be sure that we listed only gifts that were within Santa’s price guidelines and that were readily available at the local mall. On Christmas morning we did our best to pretend enthusiasm and curiosity about what might be under the tree, knowing full well what was there. The things we really wanted – to be loved, encouraged, made to feel we had some self worth – those things were never under the tree.

As a young man, Christmas was even worse. Everyone would be preparing to go home to their families. They were excited. What little was left of my family had become so dysfunctional that we did not even see each other for holidays, or any other time for that matter. I spent Christmas sitting at home alone. Everything would be closed. The decorations and holiday music outside mocked me, reminding me that my life was a failure.

So forgive me if I fail to wish you a merry Christmas. Let Christmas revert to the religious holiday it once was and let Christians celebrate it. I do not identify myself as a Christian and I have no more need to make a big deal over Christmas than I do over St. Francis of Assisi Day, Purim, or Ramadan.

Instead of looking to the unhappy past, let me focus on the promise of the future. I wish you all a very joyful New Year.