Secret Surviving

Clio, Muse of Writing and History
Greek Muses

It’s hard when Passion grabs you by the throat and makes you pay attention, forcing everything else to fall away.  Life fades into the background as you become a thrall to whatever has taken control of your waking mind and dreaming soul.   As a creative person I find it difficult to balance life when Passion takes the wheel.  It's even harder when it doesn’t.

This blog has sat dormant for almost a year.  It isn’t that I don’t have things to say or thoughts to share.  I don’t know why I haven’t been able to put all the thoughts running through my head down in words.  I know part of it is the feeling no one is really interested in my musings and worries.  How vain is it to think someone would want to hear what rolls around in your head on a daily basis?  Part of it stems from an inability to find the right words to grapple with all that I have been trying to sort out.  I have a book, a series of books actually, that I have been working on for almost five years.  I have short stories and essays I have written.  I have words, stories, thoughts, feelings and fears but I don’t seem to have the ability to get them out.  What the hell is that all about?

Pandora's Box by Waterhouse

I also have a secret.  Well, not so much a secret, some people know but it isn’t something I talk about unless life forces my hand.  I wonder though if keeping my struggles to myself, holding the silence, is somehow gaging my voice.  Could it be that secrets bleed silence into more than the object of the secret itself?  So, I suppose the only thing to do is let go of the secret, make it less, give it light, let the monster out of the closet because when we keep our fears and weaknesses in the dark we are only allowing them room to grow.

In 2008 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Ankylosing spondylitis- a disease where your immune system attacks cartilage, fusing bones over time.  When I moved to New England in 2009 I was on a medication that depressed my immune system.  I caught H1N1 and became very, very ill.  I recovered but, in changing doctors, I also had a diagnosis change from AS to Fibromyalgia.  I will be honest.  It really pissed me off!  Fibromyalgia is a diagnosis many doctors and people alike consider fake and affecting only the weak minded.  AS was scary but it was real.  I felt hopeless and hurting not to mention crazy.  Depression creeped into the edges of my life until it took over almost completely. 

Between the pain of daily life and emotional pain the depression has caused, every day since then has been an excruciating challenge.  I am grateful for the fighting “screw you “spirit I inherited from my parents.  This “never say die” attitude has been my greatest weapon but also my biggest challenge as I resist the very things that help-medication, rest and relaxation.  I have been blessed with a husband who not only accepts my limitations but encourages me to rest when I don’t want to let go; but I see the toll it takes on him when he feels like the whole world is on his shoulders and it hurts my soul.  I don’t want my kids to have their childhood memories tainted with a pervasive image of Mom sick in bed or not at This Game or That Function because she didn’t feel well. 

I am lucky.  It isn’t cancer.  For now it doesn’t seem to be AS- a disease that progressively destroys the axial body- even though there is the chance that my diagnosis will change as a possibly slow progression of AS shows itself over time.  I am grateful for what I have but I want more.  I want to write.  I want to be able to think without struggling to find simple words.  I want to wake up with the energy to take on the world.   I want to let go of the shame of not being enough and embrace my life and my future with the passion I once had. 

I used to say “I will do it later.  There is time.”  It’s later and I am tired of waiting.  I want the world and I want it now.  I am not afraid to work for it, to risk and fail and rebound. I am only afraid this never ending struggle to push through the crap of everyday will overwhelm me.  I can’t bully my way through this as I have always done with life’s inevitable challenges.  Brute force doesn’t work anymore and I am so very tired of trying.

Maybe that is the lesson here.  In the past, I  have reached every goal I set for myself through sheer determination and moxy.  I pushed.  I pulled.  I clawed.  I never gave up.  Maybe this time it is about giving up and letting go.  I don’t mean letting go of my dreams. I don’t think that option is in my DNA. Rather, it’s about letting go of control and learning to steer the boat on the river rather than pushing so hard against the current.  It’s about trusting in the future, letting go of the past and really living in the now.  It’s about letting go of the shame of not being perfect

The secret is out- I am not Wonder Woman.  Not such a big one, is it?  So then why do I feel like I am standing here in my underwear? 

The first step to writing is having something to say. The second step is being honest about what you say- brutally honest.  Writing is about Truth.  So here is my Truth:  I have limits, boundaries and that has to be ok.  I have good days and really sucky days.  There are days when I hurt so much that I can barely move.  There have been days when my depression was so severe I didn’t even care that I hurt.  But there are days like today when I remember that I am on this earth for a reason.  I am a writer and I tell the truth.  

I  teach my children to, above all else, do everything with truth and compassion.  Perhaps it is time I give some of that gift to myself.  Truth: I am human. As for Compassion?  That is a work in progress but it is a worthy work accomplished by love and patience and there can never be enough of that in this world. 

 

Live to Write or Write to Live?

Balance 2011

The writing life is a strange and mercurial one.  When the muse is talking there is no greater high.  When that capricious lady clams up, well, life can be a bit sticky for a while.  But like any compulsion, I can’t stop.  Believe me.  I have tried.  So how do I live with the ups and downs that come with creating?  The business of living any Life, a creative life included, comes down to balance.

Osmosis, The law of Conservation of Energy, Feng Shui, the idea of finding balance is elemental and omnipresent.  But is balance attainable? Is a work/life balance  a reachable goal or  catching lightning in a bottle- the luck of the draw?



During his years as a paramedic, my husband, George, chanced to meet an elderly couple, married 75 years.



 "I just got married," George told the couple.  They smiled at him and then at each other. 

"Ah, new love," said the woman, her gnarled hand patting her husband's across the stretcher.

George smiled back.  "What is your secret?"  he asked.  "Seventy-five years and you obviously still care very deeply for one another." 

Herb (that was the man's name, Herb) looked at his wife.  A moment passed between them before he answered my husband.  "The secret, son,  is to never fall out of love at the same time.  Someone has to fight to keep it together and someone has to be allowed to doubt, if for only a little while."



Sisyphus by Titian, 1549



In other words, they took turns pushing the boulder uphill.  Like a teeter-totter, husband and wife took the highs and lows, ups and downs, balancing one another through the years.  They kept faith in a belief that what goes up must come down, and then go up again.  They found their balance.

Balancing writing and life with four children and a marriage is a challenge. With the demands of both career and family pressing in from all sides, I am learning what it takes to balance my time with family with a compulsion to create. 

Living with me isn’t easy in the best of circumstances and terrible (I suspect) in the worst; but I am a lucky girl.  My family doesn’t seem to mind the moody irritated writer who sometimes goes by Mommy or Rebecca or Honey, or at least they take it in stride.

Ted Krever, author of Mindbenders understands what it is to live a writer’s life. In Part Two of our interview, Krever and I ruminate on the ideas of craft, routine and chasing that ellusive balance between an artist’s internal world and an external life of family, second jobs and social interaction.  I hope you enjoy a glimpse into the inner workings of a writer's effort to live to write and write to live.

Part One: Mindbenders

Part Two
On Writing: Life and Craft with Author Ted Krever

RM:  As a writer, we pull from our past experiences. What are some of yours you feel most influence your writing?

 KREVER:  David Morrell said at ThrillerFest that if you read his books, they were all chapters in his emotional autobiography. I'm paraphrasing but I think accurately.

RM:  Yes, I remember that.

KREVER:  So it's not so much pulling from the past for me. It's discovering, through writing the books, what I'm struggling with now.  I know myself through my own writing; it's my best guide to my subconscious. And I work pretty hard to keep the subconscious instead of the conscious mind in control as much as possible. Of course, this is something Renn and Tauber deal with a lot in the book.

 RM:  When I was at ThrillerFest, I heard many different approaches to the work and craft of writing.  Everyone seems to have their own process, their own ritual.  What is your writing process?  Do you have a set schedule?

KREVER:  I write constantly, whenever I’m able.  If I can pull out a book or pad or laptop, I’m writing.  Some days, of course, staring at the blank screen in frustration is also considered writing. When I finish a book, I take a day off to pat myself on the back and start another.  They don’t always get finished, but I am always working.

RM:  Wow. A whole day?  Isn’t that a little extravagant?

KREVER:  I’m a hedonist, what can I say? When I have vacation days, like I will this weekend, that means more time to write!  This is something I need to do.  I’m a psychotic mess if I don’t deal with all these voices in my head.  This is lesson #27 I leaned from Neil Young: the more you throw away, the more you have.  If you write constantly and just keep putting it out, you keep finding more.  If you’re cautious and only write a couple of sentences a day, it gets harder and harder. You can't let any piece of the process get too important.

RM:  I think I know the feeling.  The Innerworld, the places and people and situations inside your head need a way to get out.  It creeps up on you and comes out in weird ways if I don’t get it out—like Alien dreams.  But we are talking about you.

KREVER:  It is the overall that matters.

RM:  So, don’t over-think the process of writing then, or the writing itself?

KREVER:  Don’t think, if possible, at all.  Put fingers on keys and go.  Fix it later.

RM: I am frustrated when my typing doesn’t move as fast as my brain and allows that internal critic to voice an opinion.  What do you do when your conscious mind gets in the way of your writing mind?

KREVER:  I’m talking, really, about first draft, where I want the story to come from as unconscious, subconscious a place as I can. Let it come together in rough form and then I’ll refine later. Which is why first draft usually takes me five restarts to come together— very inefficient but useful in other ways. In every book I've ever written, I slogged to within thirty pages of the end of the first draft and I'd write a sentence without thinking and look at it and go "Oh, that's stupid" and then look a second time and it would explode on me.  I've just told myself what the book is about.  And then I have to go back and the second draft is writing the story so it leads to that line

RM:  You surprise yourself. I do enjoy that part of the writing. When you read something from yesterday and think "Really? Where did that come from. I didn't know that!"

KREVER:  Because you never know what the book is truly about until the end of the first draft.  I'm just telling a story. But I think conscious is for later drafts. Unconscious for the first, for the story

RM:  To paraphrase Stephen King:  Write with the door closed and edit with it open.

KREVER:  Because that's the level [the unconscious] the reader should react from.  That is where character and story are the same thing. 

RM:  While in NYC, you accompanied me on a research field trip for my novel.  How do you approach research for your novels and at what point do you begin the fact finding?

KREVER:  Research for me is strictly answering the needs of the story. I don’t start researching until I need to know something or understand something and that’s all I do, though I’m open to whatever I find that’s interesting. I’m always open to being sidetracked because, again, it’s that element of being surprised. It only richens the mixture. And with a book like this, I researched a lot looking for limitations. What would be the limits of Renn’s mind power? What would get in the way? If you don’t have limits, you end up with Superman—all-powerful and essentially pretty boring.

RM:  You mentioned thriller writer David Morrell a moment ago.  There were many fantastic writers at Thrillerfest and all of them gave out advice of one sort or another.  What is the best writing advice you have ever gotten?

KREVER:  Joe Papaleo, my writing teacher, told me a novel is a gross form. Just throw everything on the page and cut back later. Unfortunately, he was dead by the time I learned how to cut back properly.  That's the other hard part. Learning to edit yourself.

RM:   What was the worst piece of advice?

KREVER:  That's a tough question. I guess it was the implied concept that you can learn to write by studying literature.  Literature is great but it has no relevance to the story that's inside you. You just have to let that out. Where it stands in terms of literature is for other people to figure out later. 

You want the best piece of advice that I offer? Don't know whether I made it up or heard it from someone.  C'mon...you've gotta give me permission so I'm not a pretentious little shit.

RM:  Ok.  Tell me.

KREVER:  Write what hurts.  If you write what hurts, you'll be into your subconscious. You'll be into what really matters to you, automatically. So you don't have to worry about what's at stake for the characters.  There's something major at stake for you so there will be for them.

On Living a Writer’s Life

RM:  How much does your writing life effect and or influence your living life, your relationships and day to day living?

KREVER:  I have no life.  I write and my relationships have to fit in with that.

I had no idea what a monk's life writing was until I committed myself to it. It takes everything you have.

RM:  I think it takes a very special person to partner a writer.  There is a general attitude that living with a writer is a tough business.  Would you agree?

KREVER:   Anyone who gets involved with me has to understand some part of me is always humming away in another dimension.  Yes, I think that is hard to accept.

RM:  I know that I become very frustrated trying to live in two worlds- the one in my head and the one where I have kids and bills and laundry. I never feel like I do either very well. Do you have any advice for writers trying to balance life and writing.

KREVER:  I'm no role model. I gave up on life for ten years. I lived for writing and my son every other weekend. Now I'm trying to develop a balance; if I develop any success at it, I'll let you know.

RM:  What do you think the ultimate spouse or significant other would be for a writer?

KREVER:  Just understanding that our madness is our strength. That we can't function without this other world in our heads. If you can deal with that, then it's a normal relationship. But it's understanding that I'm in love with other women that I’ve made up and I am many different men and women all day long. And that my triumphs and failures almost all take place inside.  That's a lot to ask. 

“To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.” -Robert Frost, poet.

“We work to become, not to acquire.”- Elbert Hubbard, author.

 Author Ted Krever and I discuss the business of publishing in part three of our interview

Ted Krever’s books can be found at Amazon.com, at Goodreads.com and  BarnesandNoble.com

For more information about Ted Krever please visit www.tedkrever.com