Category: About Writing

The Demons Are Screaming

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

I’m on a boat, steering towards my destination, and a bunch of demons on board are shrieking at me. If I steer away from where I want to go, they settle down, but if I return to my course, they start yelling again. Louder and louder, closer and closer to my ears.

This metaphor comes from Russ Harris, author of “The Happiness Trap,” a book about the field of acceptance and commitment therapy. He uses the demons to represent the self-sabotaging parts of ourselves. There are many metaphors like this, but I took a liking to this one. It’s easy to imagine myself at the rudder of the ship, trying hard to keep a firm grip and a focus on the horizon, while progressively larger and louder demons caper around and try to distract me.

His metaphor also has a very important detail: the demons can’t actually do anything. They don’t have the power to touch the boat’s controls, or touch me, or damage the boat, or anything else tangible. All they can do is scream.

Anyway, right now, they’re very loud for me. I am navigating some of the important pre-publishing milestones for my book, and the universe has challenged me with a severe back pain episode for the last week. As I shuffle and stagger around the house, the demons try to convince me that I shouldn’t work on anything. That this publishing thing is sure to go dreadfully wrong and who do I think I am to publish a book anyway, etc.

I am worried about my back, and the fact that I don’t know how long it will be before it improves. As a previous abuser of painkillers, pain is an emotional topic for me. The demons amplify that as they try to convince me I’ll be in pain forever and that I can’t be creative while in pain, therefore the writing part of my life is over…yeah, yeah, demons, I’ve heard it all. Still sailing though.

Formatting My Brain

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

So, I still hate my book. Understandable. But I’m making progress on trying to format with Word. Word, if none of you have ever tried to format a book length document with it, is hard. There are three schools of thought about book formatting–the first is “hire a professional you idiot,” the second is “you can do it yourself, but only if you buy our specialized software,” and the third is “yeah, just do it in Word, no big deal.” Since my husband’s a computer geek, we decided to try Word, with the option of giving up and buying software from option #2 if we suffer too much.

What I’ve learned so far is that Word and my brain have a something in common. They both do a kind of “butterfly effect” chaos in response to change. For example, I commanded Word to change the chapter headings from bold to italic. In response, Word did that. Yay me. But Word also removed all italics from chapters 2, 17, and 30. Okay…

I’m trying to deal with my frustration by comparing this to my body and brain. If I change my diet, I lose weight. Yay. But I also have a hypomanic episode. Boo. If I exercise more, my legs get stronger. Yay. But I get a UTI. Boo. If I get some extra sleep, I feel less tired. Yay. But I get disoriented. Boo. Any departure from the status quo has unpredictable effects.

We’ll see what happens with Word. Trouble is, you can’t maintain a status quo when the whole point of the process is to change your document.

I Hate My Book

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

No one can read a piece of writing this many times, over this many months, without beginning to despise it. Doing the final formatting for self-publication is just the latest round of this. Sentences I once loved appear trite; passages formerly judged effective sound cheesy. The book as a whole, described by one reviewer as “a rollercoaster of honesty, insight, and courage,” has instead become a self-indulgent rant.

I know I am not alone; I take comfort in the stories about other writers’ processes. But right now it’s hard to imagine ever falling in love with my book again. And it’s hard to imagine feeling much but relief when it’s done; relief that it’s gone from my desk and I can work on other things.

Right now, I’m coping by trying to pretend this isn’t my book. I’m pretending to be a professional that the author has hired to prep the book for publication. It’s not my book. I don’t need to edit the content. I don’t need to have an opinion about it. I just need to do the work.

Ugh.

Write Faster

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

I’m worried about the future of my brain, and this is one thing behind my decision to go with the faster, more individually controlled, and more flexible process of self-publishing. Like Hamilton, I feel I need to “write like I’m running out of time.”

I really am grateful that my long process of meds adjustment is finished–but the new status quo involves the maximum therapeutic dose of two meds where there was one. My anxieties don’t like this…will I need a third in a few years? A fourth? Will everything just stop working?

The cumulative effects of bipolar disorder, treated or not, on the brain are not well known. But there’s some data indicating an ongoing impact on working memory, executive function, and other abilities. I may experience more than the normal age-related hits to my cognition as the years go by. They might form a gentle slope or abrupt drops. I don’t know.

Right now, I’m still working on formatting Someday I Will Not Be Ashamed. I hope to publish it in late April, maybe May. Once it’s done, I can turn my attention to the next set of projects, knowing there’s a part of me anxious to say everything I want to say while I still have the ability to say it. We all face an uncertain future, both inside and outside ourselves. I guess I’m just feeling especially aware of it right now.

Hoping to Reach Out

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Why did I write a book? I have to remember, every time I get overwhelmed with publishing details or start to worry about nobody ever reading it, that I had a very specific reason for going to all this effort. I wanted to reach out.

I keep reading depressing statistics about self-published books–but I have to remember that if my book makes even one person feel less alone, or gives one person a bit of a window on what a loved one is going through, or alters one stigma-supporting assumption a person previously had, then it was worth it all.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that not everyone knows the things I know! Clinical depression and other mental health shenanigans have been a normal part of my life for so long. And being an addict is normal for me too, even though it has been eleven years without drugs. It’s alive and well, not only in memories but in my current and permanent struggles with food. It’s hard to understand that not everyone knows what it is to compelled to do something self-destructive…and to lie, steal, or otherwise act in a way their own values abhor, because they are driven by an overwhelming craving.

When I do remember these things, these differences between me and the “normal,” it helps me to recall that my book has a useful purpose.

Cover Art in Progress!!

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

Exciting news about the memoir…I just got my first round of potential cover designs! My task was to review them and give detailed feedback to guide the artist in making a second round. Turns out I had a clear favorite, so that made it a bit easier.

There are a lot of professionals out there to help a self-publishing author…help with editing, with formatting, with the actual upload process, etc. My editing is already done, and due to financial limitations my computer geek husband and I are going to try to do the formatting ourselves with the help of some of the great software out there…but the cover was the one area we knew needed a professional. The cover is of paramount importance, since most people first see the book as a thumbnail online. So, I bit the bullet and hired someone. And seeing even this first round makes me glad I did.

I’ve learned a lot during this process so far. Before the artist did the first round, they asked me to provide them with a lot of information about what I wanted, including references to existing book covers I liked in my genre. I did a LOT of scanning through Amazon and library software to find a good list. It was illuminating…what do I like in a cover, and why? What turns me off, and why?

Anyway, I can’t wait to see the second round. And it was delightfully surreal to see my title on what looked like a real book.

I Surrender

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

To live with conditions like mine is to live life in a cycle of denials and surrenders. “Sure, I can do the thing!” is followed, days or weeks or months later, by “well…no, not in a consistent or sustainable way, so I shouldn’t have said yes to anyone who is now inconvenienced or even hurt by me not being able to do the thing.” Knowing where to draw the boundary between what I should and should’t commit to is a lifelong learning curve.

I’ve had a dream of finding a literary agent for my memoir. I dreamed of what might follow if I hit the jackpot and got one. But recently, I had an extended bout of hypomania bad enough to require a meds change and its own struggles with side effects. It made me remember how unpredictable my life, and my ability to function, is.

It was time for me to take a look at what kind of lifestyle I’m suited for, and what kind of lifestyle I want. The answers led me to a surrender and a shift in my plans…I’m going the self-publishing route. A route on which, if I’m unable to do promotion efforts during a dip, I’m impacting nobody but myself. I had already planned to do this for my subsequent poetry and smaller prose books, but wanted to do otherwise for the memoir. Now, I’m going to treat them all the same, for simplicity’s sake.

Self-publishing is not easy. It’s a lot of work and a whole new set of tasks to learn. But I can do it at my own pace, and I can manage my promotion efforts according to my abilities.

My body knows my decision is the right one (have you ever felt your body react to a decision? It’s weird, but unmistakable). I feel better than I have in months. Let’s hear it for surrender.

Channeling Oliver Twist

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment
“Please, I want you to read my book.”

Today I sent out my first book blurb requests. These are the brief, eye-catching reviews/comments that get displayed on your book’s back cover or dust jacket. Hopefully, they’re from someone authoritative in the field the book is about, or the author of better-known works like yours. So requesting them means asking for the time of someone who’s probably pretty darn busy/in demand/gets lots of mail like yours.

Eeeek.

I chose the first round of attempts carefully, and I hope realistically. Let’s face it, getting someone to read a first book isn’t easy. But I did include two “swinging for the fences” people in the batch, people who’ve been inspirational to me for decades. It was more of a symbolic gesture than anything else, to be honest, but there’s always that one-in-a-billion chance.

The process was a lot like querying, but even more individual…I did make a basic “blurb request template letter” but I altered it a lot for each person to reflect why I chose them and why they might want to consider the book.

I feel good about getting the first batch out. Now I need to relax and focus on other things for a bit as I wait for positive or negative answers, or for cricket noises of sufficient duration to let me know no answer is coming.

Micro-Learning

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

It’s still hard for me to learn new things when I start out sucking spectacularly at them. I think we all get discouraged if we don’t show any kind of talent at the beginning…part of it’s embarrassment; part is more pure ego (If I can’t be the best, why bother?).

One area I’m weak in is technology. I’m not the worst for my age, but I need to get better, and right now my nemesis is video editing. I am learning how to use iMovie, and to say I am finding it bewildering would be an understatement. But with perseverance, and a bunch of humility, I am improving.

My secret is micro-learning. With the invaluable aid of YouTube, I learn one or two itsy-bitsy things per session. I’ll search something very detailed…how do I rename a project? how do I import an audio file? Not trying to tie it all together yet. Then I take notes for myself on the thing I just learned, because my messy brain is almost certain to forget it the next time I sit down with a project.

It’s an accomplishment for me, because it goes against a very old pattern. I got into a good college on the strength of some natural talent and a lot of natural test taking ability. When I found myself dealing with much harder material there, I had no idea what to do when I was bad at something. I didn’t know how to learn…and I definitely didn’t know how to ask for help.

It’s taken decades, but now I know how. And as long as I can learn, whole worlds are open to me.

New Name

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

Just a quick note to any repeat visitors…you’re not imagining things; I did just change the name of this site. I decided that, in the coming years, having it and its address just be my name will make the website easier for people to find. It also reflects the fact that the site has become a bit more eclectic. The things I’m sharing have always been diverse, but most were focused on mental health, addiction, or, more recently, the psychology of writing. But now I’ll also be sharing news about what happens to the varied stuff I write–and, someday, links to my work itself. And how awesome is it that I’m thinking years ahead; that I fully expect to keep writing different things? Even when I’m scattered and frustrated with myself for being unable to focus in on one sometimes, I am aware that every dream is a gift.

Don’t worry, though, there will still be plenty of words about other aspects of what it’s like to be a bipolar recovering addict with an eating disorder! The conditions I live with sit with me, write with me, and dream my dreams with me. They will always be part of how I present myself to the world, because it’s a way of reducing stigma and perhaps making a reader here and there feel less alone.

Yay! I Suck!

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

ENOUGH got its first rejection letter! And I’m trying to celebrate, because this is a milestone I’ve been waiting for. You see, to get a rejection letter you have to have sent a query, which means you have to have finished something to the point of being ready to send a query. You have to have done a proposal. You have to have come up with a query letter. And then, you have to have navigated the requirements of the particular agent you’re querying and done the annoying chore of altering your materials as needed.

I did all that. It feels like the final rite of passage from the realm of “I’d like to write a book” through “I am working on a book” to “I have written a book.” Even though I’ve had a full manuscript and been revising it for more than a year, sending it out for the first time makes it feel like a Book.

All through this process, I’ve been managing my expectations. I’ve planned to query for a certain amount of time and then, if nothing happens, look at hybrid or self publishing. My hypomanic brain jumps ahead and tries to plan for that stuff now, even though it’s not time yet. It doesn’t help that I do need to learn more about these realms for my other projects.

But right now, celebration. I’m told that everybody’s really backlogged between now and the new year, so I’ll probably wait until January before sending out the next batch. In the meantime, I want to focus on other projects and not worry about publishing…because the question of how to publish these is irrelevant until they actually get done.

You hear that, brain? Would you kindly turn off the hypomania and let me focus on one thing? Consider it a holiday gift.

The Arena

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

Sometimes, for me, dissolving a block requires brute force. Screw letting my creativity flow and bubble spontaneously–been there, done that, and this poem still won’t yield even a rough draft. I haven’t written a new poem for months–got preoccupied with memoir tasks, then found when I returned to Poppytown that my efforts at creating drafts for the missing poems met with internal silence.

Yesterday, I vowed to make a rough draft of something. No matter how rough. Jagged, uneven, sharp-edged, whatever. I dragged this title into the arena and swore that only one of us was coming out alive. I took out the paper with the poem title on top. I set a timer for one hour. Go.

And it worked. There’s a draft now. I’ll worry about revision later–what matters is that there’s something to revise. Is it as good as the version of the poem that may or may not have ever come to me in a gentler way? I will never know. But I’m pretty sure it is better than a blank page.

Turn the Faucet Back On

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

I can’t get out of “edit” mode. I’ve been in “edit” mode for so long (to me, this mode includes things like proposal writing, research into agents and publishing options, etc.) that I’m having a hard time switching back to “flow” mode and actually creating something. Right now, I have some waiting to do in terms of getting my memoir queries ready to submit, so it makes sense for me to be working on other projects in the meantime. Especially Poppytown, which is slated to be the next thing completed. There are poems still to write for that…and I can’t seem to turn on poetry-writing mode!

Yesterday, I did some useful organization…created a binder with everything I have, then inserted a blank page with title only, placed in its proper order, for every poem that is conceived but not yet finished. The idea is that when I’m ready to tackle a certain poem, that blank page will serve as initial brainstorming space. Having it in order will let me keep the book as a whole in mind. So that’s all good. But it won’t help unless I can take one of those pages and produce a poem.

I know anxiety/information overload is part of it…half an hour of research into the world of publishing can leave my overactive brain whirling and lead me to a night of nail-biting ruminations. Maybe it’ll be less overwhelming as I learn more, but right now every fact I learn sends me down a new rabbit hole of information, some of it contradictory.

If I’m going to be an author, I have to learn to switch between modes. I have to learn to compartmentalize. When writing and revising my memoir, I managed it by deciding I wasn’t going to think about what to do with it until it was done. But that won’t work any more. I’m sure I am not the only writer to struggle with this, although my weird brain chemistry may add a bit of exotic seasoning to the brain stew. It’s just another new thing to learn, at a time when I’m already learning a ton of new things but can’t afford to let any of them compromise managing my conditions.

Birth is Messy

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

I was hesitant to put information about my in-progress projects up on this site. I thought I should wait until each one reached a certain point…talk about Enough, but no, maybe not until I get it farther along the road to some kind of publishing. Don’t talk about Poppytown until the manuscript is actually done. Don’t talk about my Tarot hobby-turned-serious-study until I have a business identity, website, and YouTube channel up and running.

The trouble with these ideas is that the process is at least as important as the product. By talking about it, I have the opportunity to share a process; to let someone observe the gestation, birth, and development of something new. Pregnancy takes time. Birth is messy and inconvenient. And have you ever seen a newborn baby, as in minutes old? They’re funny-looking, they can’t do much, and they really need a bath.

So, I’m going to try to be honest about where I am with everything. My readers will get to watch my learning curves as I struggle with being the new kid in school in the realms of the literary world, technology, and business. I’ll look scattered, and inconsistent, and clueless at times. And?

Once More, With Feeling

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This is what happens when you awaken the creativity of a middle-aged person with a mild form of bipolar disorder and decades of expression squished down inside them.

I’ve been neglecting this blog because there’s so much going on that I thought I would need to start a new one about my memoir project. Then I thought I’d need two new ones, because of my other book project. Then the experience of having finished a book fired me up with the knowledge that if I wrote one book, I could write others…and I thought I’d need a blog for those.

Argh! Enough! I’ve made peace with the fact that, like me, any blog I do is going to be multifaceted. So this’ll be the hub for it all…you’ll hear about different book projects. You’ll hear about living a creative life with bipolar disorder. You’ll hear about my successes and failures in self-care, my ongoing journey in recovery from opioid addiction, and whatever is helping me get by on a particular day.

Sometimes I’ll post old essays that never made it onto here. Sometimes I’ll write new ones. But mostly, I’ll try to write with honesty about my breathtakingly imperfect day-to-day life. The life of someone who used to live on the edge of suicide, but now lives on the messy, jagged edge of possibility.

Murdering My Darlings

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

An English author, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, coined the phrase “murder your darlings” to describe a good editing process. I’ve had to murder a lot of darlings while shaping my first draft, and I can only imagine how many darlings will meet destruction as the thing gets polished.

It’s hard! Especially when the darling in question is really–well, darling. Well-written. Poetic. Touching. A sentence, or paragraph, or even a chapter, that is wonderful writing but doesn’t belong where it is.

The chapters I wrote, one at a time, over the last two or three years contain a lot of writing that has to stay out of the book. Not because it isn’t good. It is. But the book has to have a story arc, and the content has to serve the arc. Not to mention issues around word count.

This week I cut the first chapter of the book. Just cut it, outright. I slipped a little exposition into what was Chapter Two, but all the writing from the previous Chapter One is gone. The book now begins in a completely different way.

Oh, darling. I’m so sorry.

Scary Progress

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Here’s the thing…I wrote a book.

I have to say it that way now, because the rough draft exists. I’ve even let a few people read it and give me some basic feedback.

I have written a story about a young girl with an eating disorder who grew up to be a scientist, a mother, a person with bipolar disorder, a counselor, a drug addict, and at last a person who tries to balance all of these things.

It’s still got some editing ahead of it before I begin trying to take the next steps, but the fact that it exists is scary.

My second project, a full-length poetry compilation about the opioid epidemic, is also making frightening progress. I’d say it’s 60% done, including the hard part of deciding how to structure it.

What the actual fuck. How did this happen? If anyone had told me ten years ago…

Stop Writing Right Now!

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That’s what my brain has been telling me for a few days. Whether it’s the result of my latest biochemical dip, or the stage of my projects, or environmental factors, is unimportant. And there’s no writer who doesn’t live with frequent self-doubt. Still, I hate it when the “stop writing” thoughts take over for days at a time.

They lay out, in excruciating detail, an array of reasons why my two big writing projects a) suck and b) are meaningless.

Sometimes they focus on the book and tell me it’s boring, self-absorbed, and won’t actually help anyone. Sometimes they focus on the poetry compilation and tell me it’s trite and not topical any more; that the pandemic means nobody cares about addiction even though overdose rates continue to rise.

I’ve done some reading about the nature of thoughts, especially the usefulness of being aware that what I think of as a thought is, in fact, nothing more than a set of words. It has no power. Whether a true story or a false one, it is a story.

I don’t beat myself up for buying into thoughts more when I’m in a depressive dip. It makes sense that my defenses get exhausted then. But it helps to know that I’m doing it; to see the process happening and know it is a process.

2000 Words

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

I’m revising an interesting chapter in my memoir/outreach book this week.

In the chapter, I’m 44 years old and in rehab (again) for painkiller and sleeping pill addiction. I’ve arrived here with the absolute conviction that it will not work; that this is just a way station between life and death. My plan is to stay long enough to clear my mind so I can write a few goodbye letters. Then I’m going to leave and kill myself so my family doesn’t have to deal with my addiction and mental illness any more.

All right…in 2000 words or so, describe this state of mind to a reader well enough to draw them in and give them a shadow of understanding. Convey the numb and matter-of-fact certainty of one’s worthlessness and lack of hope. Use images and scenes to increase a sense of reality. Make everything you’ve already written coalesce into this moment. Do this while making sure the writing is free of melodrama or self-pity.

Ready? Go.

Chapter of the Week

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Every Friday, I get to hang out with a few other writers and read the latest chapter of my book to them. The hanging out is done online right now because of the pandemic, but it’s still enough for me to make sure I at least revise a chapter for the week.

I’m at a stage where I’m going through the book chronologically and doing tweaks and consolidations. It’s the first time my group is hearing the chapters in order, because the first round of chapter segments were created and shared in haphazard fashion. Sometimes they skipped decades forward or backward.

Going in order is harder. It’s scary to be marching forward, one chapter a week, knowing that at some point I’ll reach the end of pre-written stuff for revision and have to write a few missing chapters at the end. Then an introduction. And then it will be a fucking manuscript.

And I’m doing this during the pandemic, with the future so uncertain, and my critical voice shouting that no one’s going to want to read anything about any other subject besides this for the next indefinite number of years.

Let Us Write Together

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

You are loud today, world.

This is not a week when I can even try to defy you, blot you out or forget you.

There is no muffling the parts of your voice that shriek at me not to write. That tell me it won’t matter, that any story I tell is unimportant. That thinking about the projects I cherish is shallow and self-absorbed.

You are here in the room with me, humming and babbling and singing.

So get comfortable.

I have found extra chairs.

Sit here, pandemic.

Read over my shoulder, climate change.

Correct my spelling, cruelty. Play with my paper clips, ignorance. Have a mint, fear.

Let us write together.

Third Time’s the Charm?

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

Today I wrote the third version of the few pages that mark the beginning of a new phase of my book. The first version got okay feedback, but I and my fellow writers agreed the voice wasn’t quite right.

So I wrote it for a second time. I changed the voice and changed the tone in a way I thought would sound more personal. I put in some new, clever stuff as well. Satisfied, I stuffed the stapled pages into my backpack and brought them to the group.

They hated it.

I wasn’t even surprised–by the time I finished reading the section out loud, I knew it wasn’t working. What had escaped me at the keyboard became obvious to my ears. I hadn’t just failed to improve it; I’d made it much worse.

So today I wrote a third draft. It’s different from the first two; it doesn’t try to cover as much and it’s definitely more personal. (Cried while writing it, which is usually a good sign I’m being authentic.) But I have no idea whether it works or not.

What’s really hard is that I haven’t got a plan for what to do if this isn’t better. I’m pretty sure I’ll need to put it aside for a while and try to work on another section, but I don’t want to. I want to be happy with this piece before I do later ones.

And I want a pony.

First Principles

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What helps me when I get overwhelmed by my writing projects, or by life in general? Sometimes nothing…I get to be overwhelmed for a while. I do mindless things, try very hard to choose mindless things that are not self-destructive, and generally buy time until the intensity of the feeling passes.

But when the overwhelm is about my books, it helps if I can go back to what I call my first principles: Why am I working on these projects? What is my duty in regards to them? Do I understand that I am not in control of how they are received when the time comes to send them out? Am I willing to do my best, with no guarantee that they will be published or widely read? Am I willing to resist comparisons and fight insecurity when I hear of fellow writers’ productivity, networking and other successes?

The insight I had (and was questioning) about the structure of my nonfiction book has crystallized into an updated plan. This is exciting, and it’s making me more connected to the book’s arc…which, in turn, sends my mind into the future where the book’s a book and I’m querying agents et cætera. This is not the time for those thoughts. Maybe some writers can do it, but I know I need to concentrate on getting a draft of the book done.

I’m not trying to seal off any knowledge of or respect for the realities of the publishing industry. I’ll continue to get feedback from other writers, but right now I know I’ll hamstring my creativity if I try too hard to write for anyone but me and the people I’d like to help.

Oh, No! Not Perspective!

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Don’t make me be aware of how gigantic and complicated the world of writing is! Let me stay in my little bubble of blogs and local poetry readings!

This week I’m trying out a new submissions tracker online. You can use a lot of filters to search for publishers or agents that accept the things you want to send out. I decided to look into it because they really keep their listings current–when I used books, I’d often go to a publication’s website to find they didn’t exist any more or hadn’t accepted new material in years. The tracker also has stats on things like average response time.

I’ve really done very little submitting to non-local things, and I want to change that. But I have to admit it’s intimidating to read some of these sites. I have a tendency to look at whatever I am thinking of sending them and think “nah, they’d never want this.” Especially the heavier literary sites. I suspect some of the guidelines are written in such a way as to discourage as many people as possible from adding to their undoubtedly huge slush pile.

But submitting is not just emotionally intimidating, it’s a pain in the ass too when you’re a newbie. Many publications only accept submissions electronically these days through an engine like Submittable. It’s not too bad once you get used to it. However, they don’t all use that. Some want you to set up an account on their very own server just to do a one-time submission. And everyone wants you to tweak your files in a different way.

And then there are submission fees. They usually run about $3, except for contests and book-length works. It’s an amount designed to feel like no big deal, but they add up! I’ve heard an author brag that she never, ever submits anywhere that has fees–well, that leaves the majority out. She can afford to be picky now that she’s well-known, but…at any rate, I’m budgeting to do about 8 submissions a month. It’s what I can afford.

It’s always overwhelming being the new kid at school. On the bright side, it’s a role I’ve played many, many times. I’d like to think I’ve become more comfortable with it. Or at least comfortable with being uncomfortable, if you know what I mean.

Now That You Mention It…

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The other day an old friend asked me about my writing. We hadn’t seen each other in many months, so a lot had happened. As you can imagine, I was off like a shot, talking about progress on the nonfiction book project.

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly, five or ten minutes later. “I’m going on and on, aren’t I? It’s just occupying a lot of my brain lately.”

She smiled. “No, it’s interesting.”

I believe it is interesting to her–but even if it weren’t, it would probably be hard not to at least start chattering about it. It runs so close to the surface these days. Last month I met a friend-of-a-friend at a party and ended up rhapsodizing at length. Again, he seemed interested, but was he just being polite? I can’t be sure; I’m biased.

Truth is, I don’t want to restrain my enthusiasm about my writing projects. I feel like they’re the most distinctive thing about me at this stage in my life. And they represent what I have to give in terms of outreach to the addiction and mental health communities.

So yeah, it’s going to come up when you talk to me for any length of time. It’s inevitable. Your only hope is to steer the conversation to specific topics and not ask open-ended questions.

Tear It Apart

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

So I’ve written something. Do I have the guts to rip it apart and put it together a new way? Or more than one new way?

The workshop I went to a few days ago talked about this. It was interesting to hear–although I’ve read a lot about revising poems, I’m not as exposed to writers talking about how to revise a short story or book. Joshua Mohr, the instructor, wasn’t shy about suggesting big changes instead of just small ones.

Chop out the first 600 words of this scene and start here instead. Move this scene and do this other scene first, then put in some of the first scene with suitable alterations. Shuffle the chapter order in your book. Cut a chapter that no longer fits with the arc of your story. Take the whole damn piece and rewrite it in a different voice.

I notice that, even when I’m excited about the possibilities a change has, I’m resistant to some of the big ones. One reason is I cling to the version that exists because it’s been around long enough to be my baby. To change it, I have to say goodbye to the previous version–or at least shove it into a smaller area of my brain to make room for the new one.

Perfectly normal. But the other reason change is hard for me is one that’s more problematic: it’s an attitude of scarcity.

Wait, I spent time and effort writing this. Maybe every word was an ordeal if I wasn’t in a good place at the time. If I rewrite a scene, or drop it completely, all that effort has been wasted! Oh no!

This flawed logic leads me farther into the land of scarcity: I only have a certain amount of time, strength, focus. I have a limited amount of words in me! If I don’t use every single one I manage to squeeze out, I’ll never write the things I want to write!

Unsurprisingly, I don’t write very well when I have this attitude. Nor do I enjoy it very much. My first book’s an intimidating project, but I must make room for the happy preschooler with her scissors and paste.

Cinderella

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

I spent yesterday in a fairy-tale world, feasting on delicacies and dancing with handsome princes and princesses. But the ball had to end, and I departed without leaving so much as a shoe behind.

Okay, so it was really a one-day writing workshop at the office of ZYZZYVA magazine in San Francisco. They accepted my piece for the event, and I’d promised myself that if I got in I’d go. So I did.

I call it a fairy-tale world because it’s so unknown to me; I had never been to that type of workshop before. I compare it to the ball because I associate it with having more money than I have; the cost was such that I don’t expect to be able to do such a thing again any time soon. Let’s just say I got my Christmas present early this year.

I enjoyed myself very much. The author who led it, Joshua Mohr, had insightful things to say about writing personal narrative. Here’s a distillation of what I feel was the most valuable reminder for me as I work on my book:

When you write a narrative that’s about yourself, you still need to treat the “you” in the story like a character. You need to pay attention to the same things you’d look at when working with a fictional character you’re creating: Are they interesting? What am I doing to let the reader get invested in them and want to know more? Is it clear what they want, or think they want? What are their obstacles, internal and external? Am I building complexity; giving the reader new perspective on them with every scene? Do I avoid either idealizing or demonizing them?

This kind of perspective will help me as I make choices about the structure of my book: order of chapters, what to keep and what to cut, and what isn’t written yet but needs to be.

I’m aware of a part of me that feels envious when I think of how many workshops and classes some of my fellow writers go to, or that focuses on my wistful desire to be someone who can do the same (or, for that matter, who can submit a ton of stuff without worrying about how those submission fees will add up.)

But that’s my baggage talking. It’s understandable that I want these things, but focusing on what I don’t have is toxic. I create things when I am focused on what I do have, what I truly want, and what I can do to move closer to it.

The Deadly Reflex

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

Have you ever won something, or been chosen for something, and immediately started playing a negative tape in your head about it? Coming up with reasons it’s no big deal instead of just being happy and honored?

Two weeks ago I sent out a piece applying for a narrative writing workshop. I thought getting in was pretty unlikely, but decided to give it a shot. Well, I’m in.

Any bets on how many seconds it took that part of my brain to go from joy to rationalization?

They must not have received many submissions. The submission process was probably just a marketing ploy to make the workshop seem more exclusive and therefore more desirable. They’re really taking anyone who is willing to pay the fee.

It has to be something like that, right? Surely they couldn’t have really liked my writing and chosen it over some actual competition?

Yeah, I do this. When I won a couple of prizes in a local poetry contest last winter, I told myself the contest must have had very few entries. When I shared the happy news that one of my poems was accepted for a gallery show project, I always emphasized that it was a small gallery!

The weird thing is, not all of me is this way. I’m capable of the opposite. I can admit that I really like how I write; that I think it’s good. (And why not? Of course I like my own style, and work toward improving it in ways that make me like it even more. It’s mine.)

But that other voice is eager to chime in, and I need to recognize it. “Oh, you again. Hi. Uh-huh. Really. All right, you’ve had your say, now fuck off.”

We Shall See

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, I sent about 2500 words of my nonfiction project to be considered for a day-long workshop on personal narrative writing.

“Which piece should I send?” I asked an experienced writer who has heard many segments of the project. “Which works best as a stand-alone?”

“Doesn’t matter,” they replied. “You won’t get in.”

I was surprised, but not offended. I knew he wasn’t saying my work isn’t good. He likes my work (or he’s been doing a really good job of faking it.) He’s just of the opinion that my style doesn’t match what they are looking for, based on his perception of the people and publication behind the workshop.

I decided to give it a try anyway. Going through my binder, I considered and rejected many segments. From what I had heard, I had an impulse to choose one that included my time at MIT or some other attention-getting intellectual thing. But many of the segments don’t work well as a stand-alone, because they’re far along in the book.

In the end, I chose an early chapter. The protagonist is not at MIT, or studying to be a therapist, or having an edgy time in rehab. She’s a preadolescent torturing her toys. It’s often funny, sometimes sad, and very authentic. I like it. Don’t know if they will.

Pain 1, Me 0

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

Chronic pain sucks.

This week I am receiving a reminder of this. I did something to my back 8 days ago; thought it was no big deal at first but it got worse as the week went on. It’s been hurting at the level that used to be going on all the time for me.

I’m spoiled these days; often pain free with occasional flareups. I haven’t had one this bad in four years or more.

So right now I’m being reminded how much pain screws me up–and I’m getting to see how it screws up parts of myself necessary for writing.

One: Pain makes me afraid. I future trip like crazy–what if it doesn’t get better? When can I go back to my regular activities? How am I going to function when sometimes I can barely function without pain? Writing in a state of fear tends to be joyless and stripped of its usual juice.

Two: Pain makes me stupid. Even less sleep than usual, fatigue from stiff muscles; it all leaves me cloudy. Writing is slow and awkward.

Three: Pain triggers bad memories and cravings. Back pain will always be associated with the worst time of my addiction. The physical sensation triggers memories of standing in line, filling out forms, and talking to doctors in order to get more painkillers. Even though I know all that is in the past, my body isn’t sure. Writing is harder because it’s difficult to stay in the present.

Four: Pain ups my level of depression. Understandable. Limited mobility leads to boredom, which makes me more vulnerable to depressive content from my head. Writing is harder because the grayness of depression works against my creativity.

Five, and most dangerous of all: Pain makes me self-absorbed. I regress, as many in chronic pain do, to an ego state where I lose perspective and my pain becomes the center of the universe. Writing is hard because I lose touch with why I write.

I really hope this won’t last much longer. But if it does, I need to remember that the imperfect writing I can do in this state is still approximately ten thousand times better than a blank page. So what if it’s not quite up to my usual standards? That’s what editing is for.

Hurricane

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“I’ll write my way out, write everything down far as I can see. I’ll write my way out, overwhelm them with honesty, this is the eye of the hurricane, this is the only way I can protect my legacy…”

So, my 18 year old daughter has infected me with the “Hamilton” virus. I’m not one of those lucky rich folks or lottery winners who have actually seen the play, but thanks to her I’m nearly letter and note perfect on the soundtrack.

The words above come from the song “Hurricane,” in which the Hamilton character recalls how his writing after a hurricane’s destruction helped him win support from the townspeople to get to New York and an education. Now he’s resolving to use his writing skill to find a way out of a scandal threatening his career.

At any rate, I think most writers identify with parts of this song. I certainly do. The power of writing, of storytelling, is sometimes the only power I think I have. Maybe some writers don’t feel this way; maybe they feel powerful and successful in other aspects of life too. But when we’ve failed at other things, when we’ve been to some dark places, we can start to believe that our creativity is the one power we possess that no one can take away and its products are the one unique thing we have to offer the world.

In the end, our best shot is to “overwhelm them with honesty.”

Writing Into the Void

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So, about that voice in my head saying civilization is doomed and there is no point to me writing…

I’ve been writing a lot, both poetry and prose. My nonfiction book is beginning to take shape in my mind as the segments I write start to arrange themselves in order and bring ideas as to what should go between them. It’s raw, it’s real, and I genuinely believe it will be worth reading. My first full-length poetry collection is taking shape nicely as well…neither of these things will be done soon, but they have a new level of form and reality.

Then I hear the latest lecture on climate change and nihilism crashes into me. We’ll all be dead soon. No one will ever read my work and it wouldn’t do them any good if they did.

Granted, those thoughts belong to the extreme end of the spectrum…not everyone believes in the very short-term extinction of our species. What is certain is that change is here, much of which is irreversible. Life will get harder, conflicts over dwindling resources will grow, and catastrophic events will occur.

So is there a point to me writing about the subjects I do? Why try to help addicts, or the mentally ill, or both, when the larger world is in crisis? Why does it matter, in the quick or slow apocalypse, whether John Doe stays off drugs or out of the hospital?

I start to drown in these thoughts, and must return to my most basic principle:

It matters to me.

Even if it’s only about how present people get to be for whatever happens, it matters to me.

Being conscious and capable of love matters. Suffering and dying as a human rather than a numbed zombie or cornered animal matters. Being in the mix, a member of humanity, instead of watching from the sidelines, matters.

Flooded

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

How do we know when we’re writing too much?

It’s tempting to think they’re’s no such thing as too much. Maybe that’s true for some people, especially if the things they write cover a variety of styles and subject matter.

But this week, I’m conscious that I may be writing too much of a project too quickly. My nonfiction project contains many memoir-style pieces for the purposes of outreach, and I am working on some that cover a very dark time in my life.

My task is to convey, at different times, an authentic tone of what it’s like to be a practicing addict, to take doses of drugs you know might kill you and not care as long as you get high, to be deep in clinical depression or overwhelming anxiety, to be suicidal, to be convinced that suicide is the best thing you can do for those you love, to know that you have lost and drugs have won, to plan your own disappearance and death, to know that you deserve nothing better…

My task is to write it so well that an addict or a mental illness sufferer will identify strongly, while someone not familiar with the feelings will have a window opened to a bit of understanding.

Strong feedback I’m getting tells me I am at least partially succeeding in this. But there’s a cost: I’m writing it authentically enough to affect myself as well.

Floods of old emotions, ones that are always there but more in the background, wash over me. Old grief, guilt, and shame come up often. The otherworldly loneliness of that time echoes.

Too much of this is dangerous to my current mental health. I’m noticing hits to my self-care and changes in how I relate to my family.

These things need to be written…but I need to pace myself.

Fighting Fire With Poetry

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Readers who don’t live in California may still already know this, but just in case–we’re on fire. Worse than ever before. Hundreds are dead and more hundreds missing. Ash and smoke have rendered the air bad enough to close schools and other things; masks are being worn for hundreds of square miles.

What do poets do at a time like this? We write, of course. We write about what’s going on–and sometimes, for our own survival, we go on writing about other things too.

Or we write about what’s going on, but indirectly. We write things that come from ourselves after we strain current events through the cloth of our psyche. Odd inspirations that come to us, or characters inspired by people we met or heard about.

I had an experience like this a couple of nights ago when I read a wildfire-related poem at an open mic. It was a strange one–for some reason, what came from my psyche was a poem about visiting a friend in the psych ward while the fires were burning, and about the way his mental illness was severe enough to cut him off from being able to feel or care about them.

But strange can be good sometimes–as I know I’ve said before, writing about the same basic things from a million perspectives is what poets do, because you never know which angle will touch somebody.

 

Why Feedback is Awesome

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As you know, I am relatively new to the concept of showing my writing (especially prose) to people who actually express opinions about it face to face. It’s scary and empowering at the same time, it motivates me to complete writing goals, and it gets me excited about future projects.

Sometimes it does something even more important: when I share a piece with others, their response shows me positive things about it I didn’t see. I come away realizing it’s a better piece than I thought it was; that I’d blinded myself to some of its merit because of insecurity or lack of perspective.

Yesterday I brought another of my memoir-style prose pieces to the writing circle. I had struggled with this one; the kind of struggle where you sit, stare, type a sentence, stare, erase the sentence, repeat ad nauseam. I thought the completed chunk was not bad, but perhaps not up to the standards of some of my others.

They fucking loved it. One said it was their favorite so far. Okay….

So why didn’t I like it that much? And who is right? Ultimately, I have to be the final arbiter, because I’m the one who stands by the words and claims them as mine. But it’s good for me to give it a chance, to see if other perspectives help me warm up to something.

Spaghetti Brain

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I’m finally feeling creative again after a days-long crash following my exciting reading. Creative–but wildly unfocused.

My brain is trying to think of the following things simultaneously:

  1. The status of my fellowship application to a writers’ community
  2. What to enter in a Bay Area poetry contest coming up
  3. Plans for compiling my first full-length poetry manuscript, and whether I could get it together in time to submit to a certain press by their annual deadline
  4. Which memoir-style piece to tackle next for my nonfiction project
  5. Two different ideas brought up recently for collaborative pieces with poets I know
  6. Bits and pieces from pretty much all of my old poems, thanks to recent work of pasting them into a new format
  7. Submission to a women’s magazine whose reading period just began
  8. A community chapbook I have been thinking of getting together and whether I should go ahead and send out calls for submissions.

And…Hamilton lyrics, which are awesome poetry but an immense distraction when they keep popping up during any of the above.

You Gave Me Money For This?

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

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For the first time, I have exchanged poems I wrote for money. What a trip.

When I was the featured poet at a reading on Friday night, I brought copies of my first chapbook with me. Chapbooks are simple, low-budget productions, usually containing between 10 and 15 poems. I didn’t think I would get it done in time, because my date for the reading had been moved up, but with the help of my spouse I did.

I was looking forward to the feature, and determined to focus on enjoying myself at the mic and not worry about whether anyone would want a copy. Realistically, I expected to sell 5 or less to the modestly sized audience. I sold ten, so I’m very happy.

Anyone who’s been reading this blog, or my old one, knows that me writing and then beginning to join the writing community has been quite a process of change. You might have read an entry two years ago describing my first attendance at a poetry open mic. or my first submissions.

So if you write, and long to develop your writing more, I hope you will take encouragement from the things I share. I’m a messed up person, but I took one step at a time and I did these things. I think you can too.

My Book is a Bastard

~ Lori Lynne ~ 1 Comment

So what are these projects that have been sucking up my writing spoons? Well, as far as poetry is concerned, I am trying to put together a chapbook for a feature I am doing in November. It will be the first time I offer written poems for people to take home. It’s just a low end thing, but I have to go through the horror of figuring out which poems to put in it.

The other one, the really new one, is my nonfiction book. I have always had a vague idea of using the essays I’ve written for the last five years as raw material for something, but recently I’ve hammered out much more of a plan and begun writing pieces that are targeted specifically for that.

This book is a bastard. A hybrid. A mutant.

Why?

Because it doesn’t fit into an easy category, like memoir or inspiration or self-help. I don’t want it to be just another “here’s the story of some shit that I survived” memoir–but there will be memoir pieces in it designed to help a reader identify or get a perspective on eating disorders, addiction and mental illness. It’s not a “here’s what to do to change your life for the better” book–but it will contain some ideas of things that might be worth trying, or tips on finding your own ways. It’s not a psychology book–but part of what makes it a bit different will be the experience of going through some of this stuff as a person who already had a clinical background, and where knowledge is and isn’t helpful. It’s not a “spiritual inspiration” book–but will certainly contain some metaphysical thoughts on why not to give up.

From a marketing perspective, some might say I’d be well advised to change it to fit a category, because bastards are hard to market. But I don’t think I can do that; I need the outreach element to be there. We’ll see. It’s all so embryonic that the most important thing to do at this point is to keep writing.

Something New

~ Lori Lynne ~ Leave a comment

Six years of essays, three years of poetry…and now adding something completely different.

My essays have always been personal, but in response to some feedback from fellow writers that saw a few of them I’ve been experimenting with longer pieces of more intimate and detailed memoir. These would ultimately form part of my pet long-term nonfiction book project.

I’ve gotten very good response on them so far, but it is a new kind of writing for me with a new quality of emotional experience. I need to be careful not to get overwhelmed.

I also don’t want to neglect my poetry (haven’t so far) or posting here on this site (which I definitely have.)

I have this idea that I’ll challenge myself to post every day for the coming month of October–but, knowing me, there’s a certain probability of that being bullshit. I want to post a lot, though, because there are interesting things happening with my creative life and its interaction with my health and sanity.

The Best Thing I Ever Write

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Periodically, I need to remind myself why I am writing. It’s not to get my ego stroked. It’s not for the high I get when performing. It’s not for the thrill of getting published. Those things are all gravy, and it’s easy for me to get drawn in to this exciting subculture and try to do too much. When I do that, it’s easy for me to start judging myself for not having the energy to go to nearly as many events as a lot of poets seem to do.

I am writing because the very best thing I ever write might help someone someday. That’s what started it, and that’s the core to which I return. I want there to come a time, in the dark watches of some wakeful night, when someone picks up something I wrote and it helps them get through until morning.

I will never know what the best thing I ever write is. It might not be what I expect. It might make someone feel less alone, or it might cause them to feel more accepting of some darkness within themselves. It might carry a metaphor that helps someone create their own personal metaphor as a talisman. It might be a piece that I don’t even rate very highly among my body of work.

Returning to this basic idea is even more important as I begin to consider pulling my prose together and morphing it into a longer project. Changes in style and a thousand different ideas about voice and structure try to distract me, but I must not let them.