on working the soul in revision

One of my most splendid and brilliant writing teachers was a man named Jim Heynan. He taught me, by way of an exercise, that being creative and prolific often happens when you're busy living, rather than retreating from, your life.

I was thrilled to see a recent essay of his in Brevity on the soul work of revision. Read it--especially if you didn't catch the "Lincoln" piece in the January 2009 New Yorker. The difference in the two drafts of Lincoln's second inaugural address are profound.

As for Heynan, as usual, his insight is one I take with me for ever more, as he counsels: "Even in the honing and pruning stage, when you spot language that doesn’t measure up to the sentiment you intended, don’t desert the sentiment too quickly in pursuit of fashion or conformity; stay with the sentiment until you find the words that are both true to the sentiment and satisfying for you."

selling the dollhouse

Christmas of third grade, my grandfather made my sister and me an elaborate dollhouse. My grandmother sewed outfits for the dolls and tiny cushions for the homemade chairs and couches. The dollhouse had to stay at my grandparent's house (I think Oma thought us too reckless, my mother too aloof, to be awarded custody), and for the next several years, the dollhouse was the centerpiece of our visits.

Unlike our real house, which was typically in a state of squalor, the dollhouse was kept pristine and orderly. The fake dollhouse family: mom, dad, brother, sister, infant, and maid, never interacted. Each occupied its own room, staged like the furnishings. The maid ironed outfits on the homemade ironing board in the penthouse section; the dad sat at an expansive desk in his study, a tiny cocktail sitting on the miniature ink blotter in front of him; the brother sat on the wooden toilet my Opa had fashioned from balsa and felt (poop and boys went together, somehow); and the sister frolicked in the play room amongst even tinier dolls, with the legless infant in its cradle down the hall. I don't remember where we propped up the mother.

Now, as a grown-up, week two of my real home having a "for sale" sign in front of it has proven to be a trip back in time. We've stashed, burned or given away all the clutter, and what remains is the scaffolding--the bare bones--of our bungalow. Every morning, like the dollhouse maid, I tuck, smooth, fold and neaten all evidence of life. I re-inflate the leaky Aerobed in the guest room, slip the toothbrush jar behind the molding in the open bathroom closet, replace the white bath mat so it adequately covers the cold tile and ugly-colored grout. I turn on the classical station, dial up the heat, rearrange the bowl of fake apples, and strategically turn on lights. I stop short of ironing our pillowcases, but just barely.

The weird thing is--I'm enjoying this ritual. I've timed it so I can leave the house with everything in place within 20 minutes of my little boy catching the school bus. Each day I've been fielding phone calls from eager real estate agents who are bustling to show the dollhouse to smiling families. There are two couples who've been do-si-doing each other in their follow-up visits to my perfectly staged abode.

What I remember most about my time with Opa's dollhouse is the feeling of satisfaction after leaving everything "just so." Though getting my house to this point was daunting and twitch-invoking, now that it's tidy, I feel calm, centered, grateful and relaxed when I go home at night and pour my goblet of Scotch. Just like the fake father in the dollhouse, I enjoy the quiet moments, surveying the lack of disorder around me.

ash wednesday

My dear friend, Laura, always sends out this poem on Ash Wednesday. And I always read it, Catholic that I am, with a new take-away.

Today it's patience.

Ash Wednesday
by T.S. Eliot

I

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is
nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.


II
Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to sateity
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been
contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying

Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.

Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each
other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.



III

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.

At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond
repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.

At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.


Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy

but speak the word only.

IV
Who walked between the violet and the violet
Who walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary's colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs

Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary's colour,
Sovegna vos

Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke
no word

But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile


V
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny
the voice

Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season,
time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.


O my people.


VI
Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit
of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

tune in, step out, drop in

Writing has become challenging this past week. Or rather, finding time for meaningful writing has become challenging. However, my New Year's Commitment had to do with banishing excuses for not writing, and finding solutions when things get in my way, so here goes.

As a swerve to O'Leary's "turn on, tune in, drop out," my attempt at resolving the perennial no-time-to-write conundrum is "tune in, step out, drop in," and here's how it works:
1. Tune in: listen to what people are saying
2. Step out: of my comfort zone by questioning reflexive behavior
3. Drop in: Try doing things a new way, experiment in the name of efficiency or expansion.

Here's how I applied it today.
I listened to a conversation in the Post Office line and learned that in order to have your face on a stamp, you have to have been dead for 10 years. Unless you're a President, then you only have to wait one birthday after death. I'll use this eavesdrop in dialogue, I'm certain, (lest you think it'll find its final resting place here, in my blog). But I was so intrigued with the information, I didn't pay attention to what I was doing and I knocked my coffee off the counter that serves as a package rest in the waiting line.

Next, I stepped out of my comfort zone by not immediately and apoplectically freaking out and overcompensating for my clumsiness by trying to fix it. Instead, I called the clerk's attention to the mess I made, and, to the shock of the queue behind me, took my turn at the counter and let the only other clerk leave her post to clean my mess. Of course, I apologized. Both to the clerk and to the folks in line because mistakes were made.

Once at work, I engaged in tasks that I hate first, then taught myself how to use the screen extension function so I could utilize my monitor in the manner it was intended. This little bit of dropping in I'd resisted, because I knew it would take me at least a half-hour to figure it out, but long-term efficiency is the goal, said I, so I wrestled it to the mat.

Now that I'm supremely virtuous, I better get my fanny in gear with pages!

A heartfelt valentine wrapped up in stories and song

Laura and I saw Gershwin Alone at the Laguna Playhouse today. Researched, written and performed by Hershey Felder, this theatrical biography had me mesmerized.

The balance of fact and emotion is particularly well done in this show. The combination of passion, genius and history infuses the character of a legend whose life was cut short at 38 (what is it with these phenomenal composers and their truncated lives?). Through Felder's poignantly rendered lens, George Gershwin tells us who he was, what drove him and what it was like to plug tunes in the early part of the previous century. Along with his brother Ira and a few other collaborators, Gershwin wrote over one thousand songs for stage and screen. Over one thousand. Sadly, he died before he could see the extent of his legacy.

Here's to a glimpse of history. Let's hope Felder continues to develop these heartspun pieces (I understand his Chopin performance is equally stunning, and even more romantic) so we'll have a more intimate sense of the genius that informs our musical past.

January redux

Greetings from crazily rainy Southern California, where I'm ensconced in my business partner's lovely Pasadena bungalow.

Even though my days are packed with meetings and work, I almost feel like I'm taking a mini-vacation (it helps to know that at the moment my home to the North is topsy-turvy with workers and floor-sanders scurrying about in my absence). I've been churning out words and ideas at a feverish pace--epiphanies choke-holding me faster than I can absorb them. At the risk of sounding like a crazy, New Age weirdo, horoscopically speaking, the stars and planets are lined up favorably: Jupiter has moved into Pisces and this is a good thing, apparently. Luck abounds, and I could use a little.

Stairway of Love continues to revise itself. I'm really enjoying opening a draft chapter and tinkering with it, discovering places to tighten the language or concretize a scene. It's like when a marriage is going well. There's a warmth, texture. Discovery. It's all good.

Tomorrow I'll be heading South to visit my mother and her husband in Chula Vista, and the following day Laura and I will be engaged in more client business closer to Pasadena HQ before I head back to the "great white North" to resume the routine. Am pretty set on my goal of having Stairway completely done and ready to send out by February 6th.

unwavering focus

The last two weeks has brought a torrent of unwelcome news, crises and mayhem. On the heels of grieving Kirk's mother's death, some of our closest family members have been navigating the scary waters of disease and trauma.

My brother-in-law, a stroke survivor, recently tripped over something in his garage and incurred head trauma. After a 3-day stint at ICU he's home and improving.

My daughter had three scary, fat and nasty lymph nodes removed and biopsied. Thank God they passed the path report and her doctor gave her a clean bill of health (lymphoma and its young friend, Hodgkins were the diseases ruled out).

Last but not least, my dear sister-in-law from marriage number one, Lisa, got the worst news a person can get. A scant couple of days before Christmas she learned she has Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer.

Somehow, finishing my novel doesn't seem all that important any more. And extremely important all at the same time. When you get sobering news about the probable length of a life, words like "dabble" and "ambivalence" and "maybe" feel puny and unworthy. Taking good health for granted, almost shameful. Perhaps the luxury of perceiving that I have all the time in the world to finish my book has, in the face of all this scary stuff, begun to feel like unbridled hubris.

Fueled by gratitude for today, I'm tracking a shorter, more determined path to what it is I say I want. What it is I stand for. What it is I've claimed I won't put up with. I'm selling my house. I'm finishing my book. I'm embracing my husband with as much of my real self as I know how to give.

The other day at the gym I popped into the hoops room--a place I usually don't venture unless Kirk drags me, but this particular day I went solo. Just my iPod shoved clumsily into my shirt, a ball, and my intention, and I practiced unwavering focus. The ball, my hands, the net. A little Springsteen in my ears for attitude. Swish, swish, brick. It's all about focus. It's all about presence. In writing, as in life.

writing resolutions 2010

Our annual workshop get-together where we announce our writing resolutions was supposed to happen last night. We had a freak snow storm a few hours before the appointed gathering, so our intentions fizzled with the melting snow. Or at least the spoken declaration of them.

Given the reprieve, I'm putting mine back in the slow-cooker. There are the concrete production goals: finish a novel, sell a screenplay, etc... those are no problem. It's the process oriented resolutions I have a harder time with. The "eat healthier" as opposed to "lose 10 pounds" type promises. For years I have vowed to write first thing in the morning, before the soil of the day seeps into my psyche. I talked about this with my client Ted today. The beauty of attending to the writing, even if it means simply sitting in a room as the light changes out the window. Slow. Down. Listen.

So much of what ends up on the page is dependent upon psychic stance. Tone, character, dialogue. When we attend instead of barge forth, we are operationally at an advantage. Attending gets harder as the day grinds on.

So, in deference to the muse, in 2010, I will pledge, once again, to write before my monkey mind has a foothold. There. I said it.

revising during "the season"

December is galloping along the way it always does. Candles, boughs of holly, ornaments, gingerbread creatures and their lairs. Who put all of these props on the stage? And then there's the concerts, plays, parties and festivals. Wassail? Why not! It's been a while since I had night free of alcohol.

I am a big fan of the seasonal hyperbole. As long as I stay clear of malls, I'm not unduly affected by the stress of too many people, spending too much money and the ennui that comes with abject commercialism.

My biggest complaint about December is that it's really hard to hunker down with the pages. Especially revision. Writing new stuff aligns with the mania of December. Sober judgment of existing work--not so much.

This Sunday afternoon, I've sequestered myself at the office, where there is nary a soul, save the cleaning lady. I've come here to tweak sentences, gain clarity on voice consistency, make back-story pacing decisions and to hopefully solve a host of other second draft problems, but my brain is not wanting to go there. It doesn't want to engage in work at all! Instead, my heart is leading my brain off in search of whimsy and baubles and the desire for rum balls.

Oh bother.

Stairway of Love gets reviewed by the briliantist writers in Portland!

Last night my writing group came over, manuscripts in hand, sat in a circle in my living room and opined on Stairway. Jim said I should have been wearing a crown. Seriously, all that was missing was a cake with candles in it and a wish before I blew them out. The Stairways lay about, each decorated with the pen colors and handwriting of my various workshop mates. Chelsea (blue marker) said she was proud of me. Cheryl (red pen) said I was one draft away from a book deal.

Everyone who writes a novel-length manuscript should have access to this--a circle of trusted advisers--smart writers all--who want you to succeed.

We're a big group. In size, in psyche, in personality, in success, in every way, we're big. And we come from disparate writing traditions. Some of us have MFAs, some literature and journalism degrees, some, none of the above. We write memoirs, thrillers, popular fiction, high lit. Poetry, reviews, screenplays and short stories. We blog, avoid the Internet, write until 3 a.m. or only in manic bursts.

Though we've been meeting weekly in one configuration or another for, in some cases, two decades, this is the first time we've ever critiqued a manuscript in this fashion. None of us was sure it would go well, in fact some of us had serious doubts it would work at all. One of the great things about our workshop, we've all said at one time or another, is that there's no homework. We show up, pass out pages, and get feedback chapter-by-chapter. Until now.

We decided to add this once-a-month whole-work review to our weekly workshop because although feedback on granular sections is undeniably useful, and has a cumulative quality as we venture further into our books, occasionally the critique veers toward the pedantic as we examine sentences and declare, on a micro-level, what works or doesn't. At a certain point, it's crucial to examine work from a big-picture stance, the way the ultimate agent, editor and reader will. For me, and for my next draft of Stairway, this was imperative.

Typical of the workshop model, the group started large and positive, and then moved into particular concerns, holes and problem areas. Having set the work aside for a month made me pretty open to hearing the negatives, and when there was disagreement about what should be done about the bumps, I felt relaxed enough to push further to get to the heart of the problem so I could determine whether the issue was universal or an individual reader's taste.

At some point, we stopped offering opinions on problem areas, and began to come up with solutions. The evening swerved into brain-storm mode. "What about" became "what if" and, in the course of two-and-a-half hours (and a few glasses of wine), MAJOR areas of my book got fixed. It was magic.

All that remains is two months of disciplined focus as I pore over my notes, re-engage my intuition, and dive into my book. Happy birthday, SOL, it's time to get you out of the womb.

some contemporary characters redux

The 3-day Twitter-thon is over, and, frankly, I'm glad.

Moody's "Some Contemporary Characters" told via Twitter in 10-minute increments during three work days in a row proved to be somewhat like a sexy character sketch with a smart first act arc, and an ennui-riddled ending.

The characters themselves were not contemporary, really, but the modes surrounding their "hook-up" and the props and, of course, the medium of the message were all very modern.

What worked terrifically well were the tweet-to-tweet POV shifts. Better than white space on a page, the temporal cadence of 10 minute pauses between micro-narratives had an interactive component. The "reader" had time to imagine the retort of the other party, and more frequently than not, Moody thwarted that expectation with the lyrical interjection of enjambment. Not always, but enough to get your attention.

I have to admit though, I felt like a misbehaving high school student when meeting with a client with my phone blurping out the announcement of a new message continually. And if a half-hour or, God forbid, 45 minutes went by without me checking for recent installments, I felt behind--which is my big argument in opposition to Twitter generally.

The big question is, is this prelude to more of the same, or simply a passing fad.

moody ambrosia

Rick Moody is tweeting in my pocket. Okay, it's not REALLY him--it's processed him, but the effect is the same if I suspend disbelief.

The innovative folks at Electric Lit engaged Moody for this particular experiment in micro-serialization via Twitter, and I'm enjoying the output immensely. To the reader (or audience, or viewer, depending how you experience it), it feels like being in on a secret- a fly on the wall in your favorite writer's writing room. Or maybe like being a bobblehead doll pasted next to his computer screen. Or the recipient of an epistolary manic episode.

This is the opening of the micro-piece:
"There are things in this taxable and careworn world that can only be said in a restrictive interface with a minimum of characters:"

Of course Moody would employ the colon at the beginning of this thing. The king of appropriative literature (read Hermit Crab) Moody has always been my favorite genre-bender. Twitter seems to be a terrific medium for the way he writes. The piece is dense and lyrical, utilizing repetition and enjambment innovatively and effectively.

Check it out--command it to inhabit your iPhone. You'll be hooked!

NaNoWriMo day last

I made it! Nope, I'm not a "winner" in NaNoWriMo parlance--I did not make it to 50K--but I did manage to crank out just a smidge more than 23,000 words and create a narrative hitherto nonexistent. I also managed to wreck my "t" key and build a chronic ache into my shoulders.

Nevertheless, the impetus behind signing up for this ludicrous marathon of wordspill was the carrot of unexpected reward. Unexpected because I couldn't predict whence my swerves and epiphanies and happy accidents would spring. And where they would go. And a lot of that happened--just not 50,000 words worth of that.

Yesterday, before clicking closed my laptop and heading to the dentist for a couple hours of rubber dam torture, I knew I'd failed, and I was sad. So sad, that I haven't yet logged on to the NaNoWriMo site to view the percentage of winners, because who wants to start a new month feeling like a loser?

But I did leave the contest on a high note. I added a significant lover to my narrator's cache, and in so doing found what amounts to a plot-driving grail object--the quintessential tragedy that informs my character's broken heart. So hurray for me! Not only that, but for the first time ever in my non-memoir writing career, I've appropriated an historical event for narrative catalyst. So hurray for me again.

I do plan on continuing along at less than break-neck pace with ALL OF MY CHILDREN ARE NOT HERE, but the fish fry that awaits at week's end is my writing group coming over this Sunday w/ skewers and STAIRWAY OF LOVE under their respective arms. Anyone for novel-kabob?

erin reel the lit coach

My first and only literary agent, Erin Reel, left agenting a while back to pursue other endeavors, and has created a dream career as a lit coach. It's a terrific niche market, in my humble opinion, and a perfect complement to the rapidly evolving, frenetic world of today's publishing marketplace.

With so many distractions and expectations for writers today, it's helpful to have an advocate and a guide, who's familiar with the way the publishing world works, offer a recipes for success.

Check out Erin's new blog frequently for tips on how to develop the virtues associated with literary success!

unwelcome information

My last couple of chapters of my NaNoWriMo novel have been difficult to push out. I find myself wandering around in a wasteland of confusion, annoyance and failure of spirit.

It's hard to write this way...really hard. My mind wanders, I check facebook, I move money around on my online bank accounts, and then, just for the hell of it, move it back again.

My character--and the book--is getting way more sexual than I'd intended. Yesterday, there was a surprising revelation with her, and I reacted the same way I would had I just found out about a friend's unsavory secret. Sort of tmi, sort of "I wish I didn't know that."

Shit.

Because I'm writing blindly forward in this exercise of word-count-as-grail-object, I now must digest this information, and move ahead with it and see where it all leads. Never-the-less, I feel somewhat betrayed.

keeping the momentum up

Life is full. Adding a 50,000 words in one month project to a full life can be harrowing, if not detrimental, to the delicate balance of family, fitness, fun, or yeah, and work. And don't even get me started on sleep.

When I started grad school lo these many years ago, the then-director of the program, Eloise Klein Healey, cautioned that something would have to give. That we could not expect to add 20 hours of committed work a week to an already packed life and expect that the other things would simply shove their fat butts over to make room. Like 12 tits and 13 puppies, someone wasn't gonna get fed.

And so it goes with NaNoWriMo. Producing 1,667 words per day is only possible when I take three hours to do just that and only that. So far I've been able to steal those hours two days out of the twelve. If I'm going to benefit from this experiment, I have to do better than that. Today, I'm giving up working out. I'm going to paste my rear to the chair, and maybe do some tummy tightening, glut clenching, but I shan't take the foray into the gym and all that goes along with getting my stuff together, finding a place to park, fussing with my iPod earbuds, etc... Nope, today I'm sitting here until I do my word count!