Trash · Memories

So here I sit, looking at some guaranteed undisturbed wee hours. Pandora rocks my headphones, cranking out Sissy Boy Radio... perfect conditions for writing... But the story is done.

I've finished my little experiment: How to Write 18,000 Words in One Winter Break, or How to Be
a Sort-Of Author in Three Weeks--From Home!

The Rationale: I'm going to be in school for the rest of my life. I am a writer who wants to be published. NaNoWriMo is impossible because November is FINALS, PEOPLE! HELLO?!? Ahem. Sorry. While in school, I have weeks at a time where I'm not working 24 hours a day at stuffing my brain (NOT in November *cough*). I have the option of three months off every year. Writing (well) takes time, hours a day, in fact. I have that time. So.

The Method: During winter and summer breaks, I will work on novel-length pieces, pushing as far forward as possible during the days I have "off." I realize that I will soon be a wife and mother, and soon those "off" days will be filled with all sorts of things that aren't writing. Hell, they already are. But. During winter and summer breaks, I will write diligently on one piece the entire time. Spring break, well, that's going to be our anniversary week, so all writing deadlines can kindly fuck off. Spring breaks are for WOO and nobody can take that away from me.

During the semester, I'll write shorter pieces of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. I need to feed my brain, but also leave the creative writing field way open. During this past semester, I finished a short story in about two weeks, and I know I can do that again. It wasn't the best short story in the freaking world, but it was solid. Most importantly, it was done. There will be papers and papers and papers to write and eventually to read, so I need to keep my commitments relatively low and my deadlines relatively short. I will probably crank out lots of fluff, and I'm going to forgive myself for that. Dealing with esoteric points of literature and grammar might make me a little crazy, so steam will need to be blown off. On the other hand, school offers me the unique opportunity to research to my heart's content. This semester, I'm taking an ancient history class. Do I really need to say anything else? I mean, really? Has anybody read any fantasy? Besides a class in Medieval history, nothing could be better. Next I want to take something about Westerns or the Victorian era. OK. I digress.

The Nutshell: Winter and summer breaks are for writing like the devil's after me. School sessions are for collecting crazy literary and historical minutiae and then producing short stories and nonfiction and poetry from it.

It's working out pretty well so far.

18,000 words, not to shabby, right? That's 62 pages in MLA format, you know. Maaaaybe... a third? of those words were written in 2004. But I get points for revamping them because that shit is some work. Also, with that estimate, about 12,000 of those words are new. NEW, bitches. NEW. And that's exciting.

No this post isn't about hot for teacher bondage. Sorry to disappoint.

Lately I've been having problems with school. Mostly going. To class. Yeah, I know. Trite as hell. But I have enormous emotional problems swimming all around this idea of 'school'. Let's examine.

Pressure: At first, I was freaked out about my UTeach class. (That's the one that's teaching me to be a teacher and getting me a job in three years.) It's literally the reason I'm back in school. At first, I thought I could handle all my other classes and focus on this one. And do things ever turn out the way I think they will? Of course not! Now I'm totally not sweating this class, and all of the other ones are kicking my ass. I'm completely freaked out by the C I got on my first English test. And how do I combat this? Sleep through class! Brilliant monkey! At first, I was completely engrossed in my Writing Mentor class. (This is the one that's teaching me to be a writing mentor and getting me a job in three months.) But then I let two little assignments slip, and I'm freaking out. I have a major paper due on Monday, and my first draft isn't even complete. Tests in other classes are approaching with lightning speed. Let me metaphor: I played volleyball for like a month when I was a kid. HATED it. I would look up and see the ominous white blur of the ball getting bigger and bigger in my vision like an asteroid plummeting towards Earth. I just knew that ball would leave junkie bruises all over my arms, break my fingers or my face. And then I'd run away. That's how the tests are coming in. That's how I feel about it.

Fear: So I'm rocking my UTeach class. I'm going to end up with an A, no problem. BUT if I make Cs in all my other classes, they drop me from the program. No more chance of getting certified by 2010. Monkey's world falls the fuck apart. And what do I do when I'm scared? Go into avoidance mode. What does avoidance mode mean? Acting like a crazy person in one of those television advertisements for research studies on clinical depression. All day in the bathrobe, staring morosely out the window--you get the idea. I'm utterly terrified that I'm going to fuck it all up for myself.

PTSD: So I have to talk about what's really going on. Wooo this is gonna be hard. OK. The first time I went to college, about two months into it, my mother died. Now, wait. I'm not using that as an excuse. I'm just... saying it. When I went back at age nineteen, I dropped out. I couldn't shake this impending feeling of doom. Until last semester, I had never completed a successful semester in college. Now I know that lightning doesn't strike twice, BUT I'm also aware that past experiences can color our emotional lives in very deep, subtle ways. That might be going on. I'm trying really really hard not to dwell on this, but it's there.

The Light at the End: So this has been cathartic. Earlier I looked through all my syllabi (syllabuses?), and put together a schedule for the next two weeks. Basically, I used the fear as a motivator. So far it's working. So... far... But I'm still scared and I don't know how to get rid of this feeling. I'm trying to bury it under piles of work. We'll see how that turns out.