Moments From Our Week

National Novel Writing Month

http://nanowrimo.org/

I have always wanted to do this officially, I have followed along and failed after about 3 days, cheered others on wishing I had stuck with it......

I'm done with the sidelines though. I am going to do this and do this all the way.

4th and Court, revisiting

In Des Moines there is this really cool entertainment district called Court Avenue. One one corner is the Randolf Hotel, which Jack Kerouac is said to have stayed at when he penned that Des Moines, Iowa has the prettiest girls in the world.

When I first moved to Des Moines, the girl that was assigned as my new student ambassador, her name was Allie (I think), brought me to Java Joe's on a Wednesday night. It was certainly different that the rest of what I had seen in Des Moines to that point, and my first night out with friends/peers since I had moved to Iowa.

I fell in love. Everything about the place, from the deep circus like colours, the smell of roasting coffee, the goth kids smoking Pall Malls on the sidewalk, bikers roaring up and down the streets, and the live open mic music and poetry bleating from the makeshift stage. Love. Serious love. The kind of love that had me awestruck. No other place I had ever been in my life had felt like the energy and promise that swirled around the small coffee house that night.

And so I returned. I stepped on the stage for open mic night. I fell in love over coffee. I read The Great Gatsby and the Catcher in The Rye and wrote ridiculous essays over the metaphors and meaning in each. I drew pen and ink sketches and filled in the white space with emotional and terrible, really terrible, poetry.

I also found myself exploring other coffee houses, other book stores, other live recitation and music events, but Java Joe's was my gateway to this medium.

****

So tonight I am meeting a group of fantastic women, a brave girls club of sorts, for dinner. As I parked in the garage and walked up Court and then 4th, I was struck by how much this place has changed. There are still homeless and in crisis people who spend time in front of the Randolf and the Bail Bonds storefront. The warm perfumey smell of fabric softener clashes with the smell of Asian food and deep fried something, accented by old cigarette smoke, and car exhaust. There seems to be a lot more street traffic than there used to be, but it is also earlier in the evening than I used to show up as a teenager.

Now there are apartments, swanky ones, not just the hotel room scary ones that were here when I was a teen and newly looking for my own place. The farmer's market is one of the best in the country and it fills the district with people and fresh food every weekend. There are more restraunts, more bars, more of everything, yet the modest coffee shop still thrives right in the middle of it all, still holding her identity and charm. Still playing Ani D'Franco and Mazzi Star and roaring up custom coffee drinks while local artists scribble furiously in their sketchbooks. Still standing.

I have come full circle too. Maybe that is why I am drawn to this place again. I have purple and red streaks in my head, have taken up poetry again. I feel very much like that lost girl I was fresh and new to Iowa 20 years ago, both brave and terrified at what the future may hold. So many unknowns.

These last 20 years have been filled with love and laughter, so much that the hardships are mere shadows in memory. That is how life should be after all.

Writing About Writing

I am writing about writing when I should be writing about farming or food or science fiction tropes. Still, this is important.

Why?

I am not alone in my struggles as a writer. It has taken me a decade and then some to even call myself a writer, though as a child it was easy. I still get surprised when I find out that people read what I am writing and it matters to them, that my stories are inspiring or encouraging, or just interesting and entertaining. I shrink back and think they must have mistaken me for someone else.

I write to entertain myself mostly. I learn about things for the same reason. The world around me is fascinating and complex and interesting. I write to process that. I write love letters to my children so they know how much they are adored and valued, if ever they forget or I am not there to remind them.

When I spend time around other writers I get paralysed and act all fan girl and breathless and squee a lot. Especially food writers. I get panicked that I managed to get myself in a place where I am in face to face conversation and there I am making an ass of myself. I am really trying so hard to not do that, practising composure, but it really is a mindset of unworthiness. Do I not value what I have to say? Do I not value the time and effort and skill I am working on to be a writer? Why the anxiety?

I have been setting aside 30 minutes a day and a 4 hour chunk every week just to write and blog. Sometimes the stress of work creeps in and menaces me while I write, but that time is MINE. This has often meant late nights typing in the dark with an almost three year old sleep thrashing across my lap while I use a back lit keyboard to find my words. It often means I hit draft instead of publish because it is so late I doubt my grammar skills or cannot find just the right photograph. I still do it though, I still write.

When the question is posed- write or nap, I chose write. When the choice is between laundry, dishes, or write.....I choose write. I only don't chose write when my kids need to be fed or need a dance partner or someone to mix paints and recite poetry in a silly voice. It is a tricky balance to write and to also live a life worth writing about.

That is old advice from my Professor at Drake Carol Spaulding; she said, "Don't do into a career that you spend your days writing for other people. Be a bricklayer by day and use the time to live a life worth writing about."

I get that.

I actually studied bricklaying and historic preservation once I graduated and thought about her wisdom as I battled squirrels in the kitchen while restoring our 1887 Victorian. I think about those words as I walk in our pastures and check on the sheep, as I catch fireflies on a summer day with my children, as I navigate the narrow and sterile and freaking terrifying world of being a parent to a special needs baby and now toddler. Am I living a life worth writing about? Am I living a life that feeds me as a writing, nourishing my mind and my words?

Honestly I am out of practise and daily writing is helping sharpen my pen work, get the ink flowing, and bring back my writer's wild mind. The balance of life and writing is not easy, but so so worth it.

I recently read this comic panel: Zen Pencils

Yes. Exactly.

So fellow writers- go write. When the choice is there between watching a marathon of Orange is the New Black and writing- choose wisely. When the choice is between making your bed or crawling back in with your laptop and pounding out another recipe post or short story involving an antagonist who is actually infected with a tongue eating mouth parasite, write that and maybe illustrate that too.