The Seven (Not So) Deadly Sins of Writers

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on February 9, 2011 at 3:25 PM

In descending order of least deadly to most deadly, the seven deadly sins of those who possess the oats to calleth themselves “writers.”

7. Pride

“She holdeth her head higher than the sludge around her, for she art but vain.” –Shakesmear*

Let’s face it: pride is the least of the sins, because quite frankly, all writers have this. What besides a desperate belief that your ideas are worthy would possess someone to write them down? Carry on. As you were.

6. Gluttony

“He eateth like a pig.” –Shakesmear

The writer faces not the avarice of the stomach, but the avarice of the ego. We are all gluttons for an audience (read attention), and I doubt that we shall die from it.

5. Lechery

“And in the womb a fiery tug begins, like the unraveling of an endless spool of yarn.” –Shakesmear

Ah, the lust for words. This sin is fine in moderation – nay, healthy even – when a writer delves into books and dictionaries in quest for the most perfect, the most beautiful of words. But let this sin rule your life, and you’ll soon find yourself the most haughty of creatures, heaping the sexiest of words into your work until you become the admired, the feared, the dreaded… pompous jackass.

4. Avarice

“But lo! The possessions of a worldly king are not enough. Only little minds seek more.” –Shakesmear

The lowest of creatures at the writers’ table. This covetous being demands critiques and suggestions and services, but gives nothing in return. A sister devil includes the writer unwilling to help those around her with hits, plugs, and promotion out of the idea that more for thou art less for me.

3. Wrath

“She rages! She storms! She tremors! She poops.” –Shakesmear

The rageful writer is the only speck of good in a sea of wrong. Rejections come from idiotic agents and editors, critiques are spoken by blasted fools, and every rolling thought, like vomit, gets spewed onto the public blog in all its fury.

2. Envy

“For the wicked woman looks at another’s things and says not, ‘How lovely,’ but, ‘I want that.’” –Shakesmear

The bane of any writing community, the envious artist slinks around like a snake, pretending to be a friendly admirer but secretly wishing ill and striking when the time is right. Watch your back (and your ankles); this sinner will rejoice at all of your failures.

1. Sloth

“Indeed, I layeth me down and took a nap.” –Shakesmear

Six fatal sins have preceded us, but sloth is the deadliest of all. For what writer has the right to call himself a writer if he doth not write? Only the idlest of us pretends the writer’s lifestyle but fails to fulfill the requirements of the word.

For shame, sinners, on your knees then!

It’s okay. Even if you suffer from all of these deadly sins, you’ll probably make it. It’s not too late to repent. In that light, I’d like to leave you with this inspirational quote: “You can do it; put your back into it.” –Ice Cube

 

*Shakesmear is entirely made up; I am Shakesmear. He is simply a convenient way to create quotes that exactly suit my purposes (and to avoid looking up actual quotes). Clever, huh?

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The Girl Who Changed the Weather

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on February 5, 2011 at 4:15 PM

I’ve never claimed this to be anything but guts on the table, after all.

I’ve always been a big believer in/supporter of pathetic fallacy, probably because of my background in literature. Now whether I truly let the weather influence my moods or if there’s some sort of fate or chance or spirit involved in this… well, I suppose that’s up for grabs as much as any subjective belief is. But no matter how you slice it, the weather and I seem to have an empathy.

 

In spite of all my education and logic, there’s always an initial resistance to admitting I’m struggling with depression. As soon as I’m aware of that thought, I tell someone. There’s no reasonable shame in the fact that I’m going through or have just gone through one of the darkest points in my life.

It doesn’t matter what brought it on; actual events have little to no bearing on my emotional obstinacy, which, of course, infuriates a logic-driven mind such as mine. How I am at the same time one of the most overemotional and reasonable people I’ve ever met is beyond me, but there it is. A conundrum wrapped up in a fragile shell called skin.

Somehow, my despair brought on the snow. Didn’t you know this? The seven inches or so of snow we’ve gotten in Denton over the past week was all me. It would seem. Because as I dropped off into a black hole of depression, sleeping as much as I could to avoid being awake, it began to snow. After those first insensible 48 hours of sobbing every waking minute and not being able to eat or think clearly, there was a fluffy white blanket sealing the ground off from reality. It cocooned us at home for the next five days, wrapped us in a shell that kept us from the outside world.

As more and more snow fell, I began to be okay. I discovered that reading was a great way to keep from thinking, much as sleeping is, so I finished five novels in as many days. In its own strange sort of way, this became a wonderfully enjoyable time for me, like a bubble of fiction in the middle of real life. Somehow, I began to heal – no, not heal. I began to let myself feel. To acknowledge that I was wounded and that I might always be wounded and that wounds take time to heal. And that’s okay.

Yesterday was the last day we got snow. I returned to working on my novel, which had miraculously untangled itself in my absence, and felt both an aching hollowness and a sense of overflowing with something intangible. I always feel this, to some degree. I think I always have.

So now I sit in my office, a place I avoided steadfastly for six days, and look out my window.

The snow is melting.

Bit by bit, the white coating is dissolving into the ground to reveal the earth that’s underneath. That has been underneath, hidden, for a week now. But only now, I’m ready to see it.

When the snow melts completely away, don’t be too surprised if the ground beneath it is bleeding.

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In Defense of Daily Quotas

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on January 26, 2011 at 9:35 PM

A writer friend of mine has thrown out some excellent writing metaphorage in reference to marathons vs. sprints. But to play the devil’s advocate…

The quota works for some people. Namely, me. And as much as “mull it over” writers might hate to believe it, I don’t think my 2,000 words a day are shit. Some days, sure, but everyone has those days – sprinters, marathoners, walkers, and cab-takers alike. Everyone. Saying that people who write more daily don’t write as well as people who write less every few days is like saying that people who run the marathon faster didn’t run it as well as the people who ran it slow. They all ran it, right? As long as you don’t quit, who cares how long it took?

There’s a reason that sitting down every day to write a quota with *almost* no exceptions works. Any (non-metaphor) runner will tell you, you have to get over the hump. Every level of runner hits it at a different place, just as some writers might feel exhausted after 300 words and others after 3,000, but every long-distance anything hits it. If you quit there, your endurance never builds, nor your skills. You’re running and for the first however many miles your body just goes, “Nope. This is madness. I refuse to participate in this senseless torture.” But if you ignore your body and just freaking run, it eventually gives in and you can run for miles. Miles and miles more than you thought you could. And every time you do that, your hump gets further along. Your endurance builds.

If you write every single day, your “muse” (whether you believe in that term or not) learns to show up. That part of your brain that produces new, creative sentences gets used to it and starts storing creativity at a faster rate. This is helpful. It means that when you want to write you can sit down and, without thinking for hours and hours first, have something ready to go. Mental note-taking becomes automatic. If you don’t write every day, which plenty of writers don’t, it’s not bad, just harder. You sit down and your muse is MIA. You have to go chase her down the rabbit hole just to put down a page or two. And argue as you will, that page or two is unlikely to be any better or worse than any page or two of a daily quota writer.

Trust me, I’ve been both.

I like to think of the daily quota as me and my muse having a running date. Every once in a while I might not show up, and every once in a while she stays in bed, but most days, we know where to meet. At the keyboard.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m a proponent of breaks when one’s feeling worn-down. Muse vacations, if you will. Any writer who focuses too much on the word count for the sake of the word count has got the wrong priority. Quality over quantity is something I think we can all agree on. But there’s no reason that one has to negate the other. There’s just not. I don’t have a certain amount of “good” writing in me per day that I run out of and keep going. It’s just about effort. Are you willing to put in the effort to make your writing strong, or not? Are you willing to (forgive me) go the extra mile? First draft or fiftieth, seat-of-the-pantsers or plotters, walkers or sprinters, we all want it. All dedicated writers want it. When it comes down to it, at least in the writing metaphor, speed has nothing at all to do with a marathon. Dedication does. And I think, in spite of technique differences, we can agree on that.

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How I Lost a Toe in ‘Nam

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on January 19, 2011 at 3:58 PM

And by ‘Nam, I mean nom. Buttons is viscous. No, not really (well, she is, but that’s not really how I lost a toe). But I DID lose a toe! Let me take you back to the tunnels of the Vietcong in 1967. I mean the Bryan-College Station, Texas “Cross-Town Show-Down” of 2002.

The stakes were high (I have no idea if the stakes were really high). Whichever of these two high school football teams won this game would be the champions of the world (I doubt that’s true). It was a particularly cold, bitter night in late November (it could easily have been October or early December), and the Bengal Belle drill team was prepped to dance their hearts out. (What? That part was true.)

Back in the sweaty days of July, some high-ranking official on the dance team had succumbed to a version of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or maybe a case of the Mondays. Either way, I’m sure a surf-themed dance routine seemed like a great idea at the time. Hey, it was hot then, right? And beachy? And, well, everyone loves the Beach Boys, don’t they? (I think so.) Somehow in that humid, stagnant, sweltering summer’s day, one or more officers choreographing that year’s routines overlooked the fact that we would be doing this routine in late fall. They put together a field-routine with surfboard props, complete with a kiddie swimming pool and adorable, bright-colored sarongs for the dancers to wear.

Sarongs.

I wish I had accurate data on how cold it was that night, but the Vietcong infiltrated our systems and destroyed all of our records. But it was cold. Really, really cold. Cold enough so that sitting in the bleachers before half-time, we were allowed to wear our full warm-ups plus letter jackets and even maroon and white blankets if we had them. Parents snuck by and brought lucky girls hot chocolate from the concession stand. I shivered in my sequined cowgirl hat and white dance boots (Not really – we weren’t wearing those at this game. But we usually did).

Then it was time to strip down to our skimpy summer-esque costumes and give the crowd a show. Or at least the part that hadn’t gotten up during half-time to get a hotdog. Our costumes? Essentially, a black lycra long-sleeve leotard, black lyrcra tights, and a cotton sarong about the length of a mini-skirt. To simplify: spandex. And lots of makeup. And no shoes.

No shoes!

Now, as cold as it was that night, the ground was colder, and my feet were naked. I’ve always had poor circulation. My feet almost instantly went numb – before we even got out on the field. So we marched out there in our silly costumes, two girls to one wooden surfboard prop, got into position, and waited for our music. And waited. And waited.

Something was wrong with the tape. We ended up standing out there on that frozen field, barefooted, for about ten minutes. Ten minutes! That’s a really long time to be holding a single position, period. Add a couple thousand eyes watching you (I have no idea how many people were actually in the stands), and it’s a really long time. Be nearly naked in the biggest cold-front the town has ever seen (a blatant lie), and it’s downright deadly.

Finally, the music came on (“If everybody had an ocean / Across the U.S.A.…” and the Bengal Belles strutted their stuff as we were always wont to do. The audience applauded extra loud for our overcoming the ten-minute wait of awkwardness, and we retreated to the stands to put back on our warm-ups. But alas, my friends, by then it was too late.

My toe had died.

And try as I might to resuscitate it, it was no use. The “pointer” toe on my left foot had turned as white as a ghost, and there was no warming him back up. To this very day, if I get even slightly chilled, Twinkle is the first toe to die. My husband (a First Responder, I might add) says Twinkle got superficial frostbite that night. Poor little guy. He was a good toe. RIP, (van) Twinkle. To this day, I still twitch when “Surfin’ USA” comes on the radio (nah, not really).

And that’s how I lost my twinkle-toe on the battle—er, dance field. And I didn’t even win any medals.

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What I Do All Day

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on January 16, 2011 at 6:10 PM

I’ll tell you my very least favorite part of being a writer. It’s not rejections. It’s not waiting for rejections. It’s not the work. It isn’t even being called “a housewife.” It’s submissions.

I. Hate. Submissions.

I work the equivalent of a full-time job most weeks, in being a writer. I write for 3-4 hours a day (unless it’s a really good, fast day) 7 days a week. That’s about 25 hours a week. And then I spend about 2 hours on submissions each day. That’s 14 hours a week. That doesn’t even take into account editing and formatting and blogging and record-keeping. Throw in my 3 hours of critique groups each week, and hell, I’m working over-time.

I’m telling you all this not to complain (okay, a little to complain), but mostly to let you know. When people find out I’m a writer (which is not, I reiterate, the same as being a “stay at home wife”;), they often ask me, “So what do you do all day?” They don’t mean to be rude; they’re genuinely curious. I can understand that. So I’m explaining.

About half of my available working hours are dedicated solely to writing. The other half go to necessary, boring, mind-numbing crap. Hey, it’s true.

At this exact moment in time, here’s how my completed, unpublished works break down:

• 2 novel manuscripts- 2 sent out to a total of 14 agents queried, 1 partial in review
• 2 poetry manuscripts- 1 sent out to 1 poetry contest
• 2 short stories- 2 sent out to 2 publishers
• 8 flash/micro fiction pieces- 6 sent out to a total of 7 publishers
• 289 individual poems- 11 sent out to 4 publishers

As you can see, that’s over 300 works finished and always waiting to be sent and re-sent for publication/representation. That’s not even including all of my WIPs (2 more novels, 1 more book of poetry, and near-constant short fiction and poems). It’s easy to imagine how once I started becoming more prolific than my submissions it became almost impossible to catch up. But it makes no sense to me to stop writing to have time to submit. Writing is the whole point. Publication is desirable, but time-consuming.

 

The worst part of it all? That it never ends. If I got each of these accepted at the first place I submitted to, I’d be golden. But that’s not the way it works. I get rejections in the mail/email, and as if that wasn’t bad enough on its own, it means I have to send that same piece back out again. It takes at least an hour, usually more, for me to narrow down, research, and choose the perfect venue to send a poem or story. Agents are even harder. So when I get a “no” back, it means that piece goes back on my list. Not so fun.

If I were really, really rich, I would hire someone to handle all of my submissions. That’d be baller. Anyone interested in working for cookies?

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