Dropped off the face of the earth for a few months

I kinda dropped of the earth for a few months...well maybe just off this blog. I've gotten slightly obcessed with MySpace. I've been enjoying my summer. I've written a few poems which I will be posting on my poetry blog.

Next week I start a memoir course at Writer's Village.com. I hadn't been at that site in a few months, so I was pleased as punch that the memoir course was being offered again. I feel like I've been waiting for that particular course to come back around forever.

School's going to start soon and I am so much more focused and organized when the kids are in school. There might be another Fast Draft session coming up and I am seriously considering particpating in that. Two weeks of solid writing would certainly make me feel like this summer was actually somewhat productive. I've been wanting to write a novel about being a widow and feel like I'm finally emotionally in a position to do so.

I stopped writing, then my life nearly fell apart

I finished the Fundamentals of Fiction Writing Course and most of the Focus on the Novel Course, but had to drop out because I couldn't write 3000 words in a week. Once upon a time I could do that in a few days. So I dropped the course promising that I would continue working on the novel at a slower pace. I never wrote another word! Oh, I've bought plenty more books on writing ~ books on writing short stories, writing memoir, articles, and poetry. I think about things that I would like to write all the time. I've had ideas for stories and poems...but I don't pick up a pen and write.

Up until May 15th, I felt every part of my life dissolving. I'd try to get one area of my life together and another would fall apart. Then eventually, everything seemed to fall apart and I started to feel it couldn't be put back together again. Is it because of my husband's death? Absolutely, but I couldn't tell you exactly why. Sometimes it's because of the depression I felt and other times it was because the demands of a being a single mother were just too great. Eventually, just trying to keep up with daily life became exhausting and I just stopped trying. I stopped doing everything that I love ~ reading, drawing, answering e-mail, posting here. It's like I shut out the world. Sure when people talked to me, I would smile and say that I'm fine. How could I explain it? I kept telling myself "I'm not the one that died" yet I couldn't get myself to care about anything but the kids. If I could get through the day without bursting into tears at the end of the day, it was a good day. I could only feel despair over dealing with the kids or Scott's death. Most of the time, I was in a no man's land, where I wasn't sad or happy. I called it oblivion.

All the books on grief say it's normal. What they don't say is how the hell to get out of it. I searched and searched for some guidance on how to get out of the oblivion. Some books suggested taking anti-depressants, but most had no clear answer. I think I know why now. You just have to let it run it's course, like a cold.

Since, I couldn't fix it and I didn't want to start drinking (I've been down that road before), I started shopping. Hence, the large amount of books on writing. Then when that didn't work, I started sleeping as often as I could. I neglected the laundry, the housework, and dinner would end up being fast food because it was too late to cook anything. In my slumber, the kids would destroy the house making even more work for me. My house ended up being as much of a mess as I was. "As within, so without," right? They never said anything but the look in their eye would say, "I know Dad died, but get your shit together, Mom."

Then May 15th started approaching. This is our anniversery. We would have been married eight years. I got extremely depressed the days before. Oblivion started to look like it was going to last for eternity. Eternal oblivion....sounds like another name for hell, huh?

I woke up on our anniversery, expecting to feel the most despair I had since Scott had died but intstead, I felt like I was at milestone. It was our anniversery, yet at the same time it wasn't. It was just an ordinary day. I bought him a card and put it at his grave. I remembered all that we shared in our time together and I did something I hadn't done before. I let it go. I felt like I had just finished a chapter of a book and was about to start the next chapter of my life. I saw nothing but possibility for the future. Every day since then has been better. I cleaned my house, finished my laundry, and started taking steps toward renewing my passion in all the things that I love.

I no longer feel like I'm in oblivion. Now I feel more like an old car that hasn't been driven in a long time. I'm not quite turning completely over. I'm only startingin fits and once I get started I turn off again, but it's progress. I want to read. I want to draw. I want to claim this new strange single life. So I just need to fiddle with the engine, make a few adjustments here and there, and eventually I will be moving towards any destination that I choose.

Most of all I want to write about it. I want to take my life experience and turn it into essays, poems, and stories. This blog is about that journey.

Fundamentals of Fiction starts today

The course that I'm paying good money for starts today. I'm hoping it will be more in depth than the courses at Writer's Village. If not, then I paid about $319 too much.

I was just venting on my MySpace blog and wrote a diary entry. I decided to post it at the Flash Memoirs group that I belong to and to my complete surprise it got great reviews. I've never gotten compliments like the ones that there given to me. Julie this is so poignant...most people who write about loss, in the months that follow, tend to write about it with passion, but few write coherently - - You do both. You've written beautifully, and carefully. I'm not trying to be conceited. (In fact, if you read the rest of this blog you will see how I constantly degrade myself).
These compliments give me a glimmer of hope that maybe I'm actually doing the right thing pursuing my writing.

Right now I am struggling with whether or not I should got to college or write full time. I'm terrified that I will get so busy with pursuing a degree that I'll stop writing. I keep asking myself this question: Would I rather have a degree that allows me to get paid to do something I enjoy or would I rather write full time and do something that I love? I feel like society has put some kind of stamp on my forehead that says "Loser! Never went to college." Yet, I know that no degree is going to make a difference when it comes to getting a novel published. I'd much rather be home with my children pounding out a chapter of a novel or memoir than in some classroom studying things that will be pointless to me, like algebra or South American politics. Reading this, I realize that I have made my decision. I just feel like society demands that you go to college in order to be worthy.

Something really smart or really stupid

I did something that ill either be really smart or really stupid. Since the courses at Writer's Village are so inexpensive and I'm able to sign up for too many at one time, I just don't complete them. They also aren't the courses I need at the right time. (Like the revision class. I need to have something written to begin with!) I find myself blowing them off. So, I decided to sign up for Fundamentals of Fiction wtih Writer's Online Workshops. At $319, that is definately not cheap. I'm hoping that since I'm having to spend a large amount of money on the course, I will get as much out of it as I possibly can. That, or I will blow it off too and waste $319 in the process.

Today I wrote this in response to someone who was sympathizing with my hectic schedule as a widowed single mother:

It is tough but I'm starting to realize that I can't just sit back and hope that my routine will settle and the time will fall into my lap. I control my routine, not the other way around. The loss is fresh but, ironically, it just drives me to succeed even more. I want to make my late husband proud and I'm the only role model my kids have now. I want them to see someone who achieves her goals, not just sits around talking about them.

How many times have I written variations of that last sentence on this blog? I want to achieve my goals, not just talk about them. You would think that a life-altering event, like your husband dying would make you change the way you live life. Not me. It's like I went from housewife to professional slacker. My outer life has drastically changed, but inside I'm still the same pathetic, whining, procrastinating, self-defeating...I'd say failure but you actually have to try to do something before you can fail. I love to talk about all my goals, but I refuse to take any action to actually achieve them.

If I don't change the way I live my life, than Scott's death is in vain. The purpose of his death was not to leave me money so I can sit around the house shopping on Amazon.com. My life has a greater purpose and I am completely ignoring it. I keep trying to be that sad, poseur of a person but there's just no place for bullshit in my life anymore. I don't know if I'm meant to be a writer, but taking the steps to achieve it is so much better than sitting around and doing nothing. It's not doing me any good and it's certainly not teaching my kids anything good.

Not ready for Fast Draft

I finally got a rough outline of my novel idea, but I know virutally nothing about the characters, setting, subplots, etc. I just have the basic skeleton. This story will also require a lot of research, which if I don't have that research, it'll be hard to write a huge portion of the novel. So I think maybe I'll try to get 20 pages of notes done on the novel each day as opposed to actually writing the draft. That's almost a novel. lol I just want to to make use of this Fast Draft time so I can at least get something done.

I just can't help feeling like I haven't trained in months, yet I'm being asked to run the Boston Marathon on a weeks notice.

There's also a second issue. This novel idea contains some very controversial subject matter on religion that I'm not sure I'd be willing to publish in the first place. If I did publish it, it would certainly be under a pseudonym. So I find it hard to convince myself to put in the immense effort to write a 280 page novel that I don't intend to publish.

Some other ideas that I've had for Fast Draft include writing a short story every day for fourteen days. Maybe I could make these into the "novel of collected stories" that I had wanted to do for the original Fast Draft class in manner of The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing.

I just think I'm going about this all wrong. Instead of putting all my energy in one race (the marathon) I should train everyday. Read books like Bird by Bird and Writing Down the Bones and just fill notebooks. Do a daily jog and build upon that. I haven't even read a whole novel since Scott died, so how the hell am I supposed to write one?