fiction dept journal entry

I don’t have a writing process. I have nothing resembling a set of steps I take to produce writing. I have no things that Must Be In Place in order for me to write. Maybe that’s my problem. I tend to sit in front of my computer and stare at the screen until I start writing. I tend to write the way I think, let all the words flow, except when I know I’ve misspelled something and then I must go back and fix it before I move on to the next word.

And sometimes, I write a lot. And sometimes none of it is any good. Sometimes, I write nothing. I sit. I wander mentally through my list of things to do. The list is always more convoluted in my mind than in actuality. Sometimes, when I grow tired of sitting and waiting for the words to come, I will turn to the internet. Then it is very hard to write. I find myself saying, you’re just opening your mind to new topics, I say. Oh, research, I say, you’re just doing research. Yeah. right. sure.

It’s like an alcoholic saying just one sip. Or someone who’s actually managed to quit smoking say just one cigarette. We all know that “just one” is a lie we tell ourselves. It will never be just one. My “just one” hour on the internet inevitably becomes two or three. I’ve found some interesting things, just today, for instance: mydeathspace.com, where people post a little article and photo of someone they’ve recently lost, usually to a tragic and untimely death. Or these siblings in a band from Indiana whose parents named every one of their five kids the same name (even the one lone girl). And, did you know the entomology of pontificate is bridge?

When the writing does happen, it’s a beautiful thing. This sputter of words happens. It’s like a balloon in the middle of being blown up, when it escapes the fingers and flies through the air. Physics. Physics are cool. And then I look over what I’ve written and what’s still left to say. I turn back to the internet and my mind huffs and puffs at another balloon. I come back to the word processing and type in a frenzy of fingers. Over and over again.

Sometimes, the good thing about the internet is that I have two or three writing outlets that make me feel marginally better for not being able to write in the word processing program. I write for a blog that my friend started about the art scene in Chicago. I feel pretty accomplished when I manage to write a review, especially if I can’t seem to get any fiction writing out. Problem is, we don’t go out to see art things too often, so I tend to use that writing opportunity up quickly. I have a personal blog that I use to write about an array of topics and things, usually pretty personal. Sometimes the lie I tell myself about this is that it’s okay because I’m just getting the bad writing out. If I’m really feeling guilty about not writing, I’ll send a huge batch of e-mails, thinking someday, if I become famous and someone have saved our correspondence, I can say, see that e-mail there is from a time when I wasn’t able to write.

I think another part of my problem is that I’ve moved three times since school started. Initially I had no computer at all, then had too many computers and a printer, and now I only have my laptop, but it is an apple and doesn’t have microsoft office. I never thought I would miss Microsoft word, but hell, take something away and suddenly it’s something you can’t live without. For a while at least.

This last move was a Big Move. One of those life altering moves that you look back on and realize you’re not the same person and it began the moment you packed your things and you signed this lease and you’re in this new, strange place. The hard thing for me is that all the things about my old apartment that I was used to are gone. It’s almost like relearning to walk or talk. I feel so lost and confused and occasionally weep for no reason other than emotional stress.

Last semester, when I had writing homework, I would sit in my room on my bed and write in microsoft word like a speed demon taking out a fancy car that can handle triple digits. I had a huge monitor on which the text was displayed three hundred percent. I would sit back against the wall with a wireless keyboard on my lap. And just type away. Sometimes I would listen to music, but not to accentuate my “writing process,” I needed the music to drown out the sounds of Cartoon Network and my boyfriend and our roommates laughing hysterically at Family Guy. The music could only be something I was so familar with that it would blend into the background while the writing was happening, and then provide a familar respite when the moment of frenzied writing was over.

I think the funny thing about having people around all the time--for now I am alone, horribly and miserably alone--is that the people are always the reason why things don’t work out. Truth is, roommates, they just make good scapegoats, but when you’re alone there’s just you. I don’t even have a tv to blame for the lack of my writing. I just sit here and stare at the screen and then promise myself just one hour of interneting, and boom, it’s midnight.

Maybe my problem is that I have no routine, no formula, no sure fire way to set the mood to lure my writer out. I’d worry if I did. She’s not a trained seal, she’s no clown here to make you laugh, she’s not expected to perform on demand.

It took me a while to get into the whole story workshop methods. I rarely wrote longhand. My first semester was agonizing. I would sit in the semicircle and listen to the in-class writing of the other students and sit stunned by the transformation of their giggly demeanors instantly turned into serious writing. Most of the in class writing from that time I would never want to read back. I would sit with my hand over my notebook and hope the teacher wouldn’t call on me. She did.

Now, I simply try to accept that there’s moments when I’m more inclined to write and there’s times when I just won’t and can’t and really, really want to but it’s not there. I try not to get too down on myself, I try to be accommodating and make additional face to screen times, because I know one thing for sure: I am a writer. I’ve never been anything but and it’s not like I can divorce myself from that, or move away from it, ever. Eventually, my writer takes over the pause, the lull, the blinking cursor in the white screen and does what she does best.

Besides, I owe her the benefit of the doubt to make up for all the times I’ve held her at gunpoint at midnight, strapped to a comfortable but slightly awkward office chair, forcing her to produce yet another draft of a five page paper for my English class due, of course, the next day.

The good news is because I have no process, I can literally write anywhere. I can write in any lab at school even if people are talking the background (the roommates provided plenty of practice for my skill of selective hearing), but of course, I prefer the energy of the fiction writing lab. I can type on my bed with my laptop, music playing or not. I’ve even used my laptop on the train. I love it when people can’t stop reading the words on the screen. And thanks to the story workshop method, I can even write in a notebook. And my writer is uninhibited, with no qualms, no demands, and the privileges associated with freedom.