Alyson's Meditation on Green & the Writing Life

So, lately I've been at a loss for blogging topics. That's not unusual, of course,but coming up with ideas has fallen to the bottom of my priority list. In my writing life, I'm rewriting, rewriting, rewriting my first manuscript, and manically jotting down notes for my second and third. I'm very caught up in it. I learned a lot at the RWA conference and I want to apply it. In my reading life, HP came out a couple weeks ago, the latest book in the Stephanie Plum series is sitting in my TBR pile, I want to read Nora's latest, AND I arrived home from the RWA conference with a box of books that keep calling out to me. (And, of course, I've given in and read three of them, but I have twenty more to go!) My family life as a mom, wife, sister, daughter and in-law has been busy, busy, busy. As usual, our summer weekend schedule is jam-packed. Last weekend was my eleventh anniversary, three dinner dates and my great nephew's birthday party. I also found out my sister has melanoma (we find out the lymph node biopsy results on Friday). Next weekend, there's no reprieve. Amongst other things, we're supposed to go to Michigan for a surprise party for my uncle. In between, my dogs are on high alert because there's a possum nest in the tree in our backyard and a coyote is roaming the 'hood. My adorable son has turned into a five star general, and I'm to be at his beck and call. Seriously. Just ask him, he'll tell you. Mommy is simply NOT to have a life of her own. I'm to entertain him 24-7, and all kinds of interesting dynamics have developed between him and the nephew I babysit. Both little boys have learned to argue and throw fits worthy of angsty teens. Besides all that, my house is a complete mess. I need to work out. I took on a free lance assignment as a research assistant. It's my husband's busiest time of year work wise so he's walking around looking like a zombie, except for when his band has a gig. And it's summer. Summer, when I want to be outside, not sitting inside blogging.

You get the idea. I'm busy and distracted, just like everyone else. Because of it, I can't seem to think of anything to blog about. For me, blogging is more of a winter activity. But I keep my commitments. So, this morning, I asked my son and husband what I should blog about. Give me a topic, any topic, I said, and I'll relate it to writing and turn it into a blog. My three and half old son, bemused as he painted, said, "What's your favorite color, mom? I'll paint it for you."

Green. My favorite color is green. I also like blue and yellow, especially when they're matched together as in sunny skies or Swedish art, and red, the color of passion and my temperament, but my longtime favorite, favorite is green. It reminds me of spring, and it chills me out, soothes my turbulent soul. So, as crazy as it sounds, I'm blogging about green , and relating it to writing. Heck, why not? I like a challenge.

So, let's think about this-- how does green relate to writing?

First, to be green at something is to be brand-new to it. To lack training or worldly experience. To be fresh. Not aged or processed or seasoned, not cured or tanned. To lack sophistication. It can also mean to be easily duped or deceived.

That one is easy. I started working on my novel in late April of 2006, fifteen or sixteen months ago. At that point, I didn't have a solid idea, but I'd signed up for a class and I was excited. Maybe writing a romance novel is the ticket, I thought. I knew very, very little so I was definitely green. I could tell a story, orally, and I could write a coherent sentence but I knew nothing about craft--plot structure, conflict, character arcs, layering in details and sexual tension, scene and sequel. I went solely on intuition. Luckily, I'd read a lot so I knew more than I thought I knew, but I didn't know how to articulate it or apply it. Talk about lacking sophistication! And I still lack sophistication. I'm a newbie. In many regards, I have to learn to give myself a break. I've learned a lot about the craft, about my process and I'm doing everything I can to make my manuscript the best it can be at this point in my learning curve. I can't compare it to SEP's tenth novel, or Nora's 100th, or Suzanne Brockmann's fourteenth, or whatever. I'm green. They're not.

Kermit the Frog said it's not easy being green, and that's true. It's frustrating when you realize you don't have enough sexual tension, you haven't layered in enough lusciousness, or used setting as metaphor. Or when you realize you have way too much dialogue and you have to cut lines you love. Or when you realize you're telling, or you've given too much back story up front. Or not enough. Or when everyone has a different opinion and you don't know who to trust or believe. Or when you know what you want to translate onto the page but you can't get it right. It sounds too cheesy, or cliched, or simplified, or melodramatic, or boring, or whatever. Fill in the blank. Or when you think you've mastered internal and external conflict but you have an aha moment about character arc, and you realize you have tons more work to do. AND it is easy to be duped, to run around changing things because expert A said this, and expert B said that. You try out everything--EVERYTHING-- just to end up right back where you started, albeit, with a list of things that don't work for you or a list of things to do differently next time or a checklist of things you really need to include in your next manuscript upfront.

Green is the color of jealousy and envy, and money and greed. How I wish I could entertain like SEP, or Loretta Chase, or Julia Quinn. How I wish I could know the success of Janet Evanovich, or JK Rowling, or Nora Roberts. How I wish I could write prolifically and easily and have the time, the luxury of time, that I falsely imagine others have. And the kudos. And the paychecks. How I wish there was some sort of guarantee that I'd make it. Make it BIG.

Green is the color of the grass on the other side of the fence. I wish I wrote as well as my writing group pals. I also wish I was into dark, moody, paranormals, Manga-esque urban edge and romantic suspense so what I write would be "hot." I wish I had a knack for historical detail. I wish I was as cute as those women launching the Shomi line, that I actually looked good in thigh high stockings.

Luckily, I don't really traffic in jealousy and envy much. In my mind, they're masks for fear-- fear we won't be able to get what we want, fear the universe isn't abundant enough, fear we'll fail, fear we're not good enough, fear another's success diminishes ours somehow, fear we actually suck at this writing thing, fear we won't find an agent or editor willing to give our work a go, or if we do, our books won't sell. We'll flop.

Yellowish green is the color associated with feeling ill or nauseous. The color of a sickly or unhealthy pallor. The color of cowardice. It's the color we turn when we become too invested in jealousy, envy and fear. When we focus too much on our shortcomings as writers. Nobody's perfect. Competition and perfectionism lie at the root of most creative blockage. Just let it go.

Green is the color for go. Letting go, going forth. It means free, unencumbered passage in terms of traffic. Every successful writer says the same thing-- write, and don't be too hard on yourself when you're writing the first draft. Just go for it.

Green has a strong emotional correspondence with safety. I associate this with protecting your work. Go forth and write, but protect your work as you do it. Choose your writing and crit partners carefully. And please don't show your work to the yellowish green folks. They're way too caught up in the competition and perfectionsim thang. It won't be helpful. More often than not, they'll puke all over your pages and leave you to clean up the mess. Also, beware of the green horns, like moi. Sometimes, we don't know what in the heck we're talking about.

Green is the color of nature, foliage, fertility, vegetation. It reminds me of spring and summer, the forest preserve by my house, the smell of fresh mowed grass. It represents creativity, birth, hope, growth, renewal, regeneration, and abundance. It also represents cycles. Writing is nothing if not creative-- giving birth to stories, helping them grow, renewing yourself in the process. The process is cyclical. You start out loving your story, it grows and blossoms, but then as you slosh through the middle your creativity withers, your enthusiasm wanes, you almost give up, but then you rejuvenate. Over and over again. If you're me, through several drafts. You finish one story and start all over again, with something new and the same thing happens. Like a garden, your stories/novels/ screenplays/series can be rigorously planned, plucked and nurtured, leaving as little as possible to happenstance, OR they can be wild, left completely to nature and instinct, OR they can be cultivated doing a little of both. (Ah yes, the plotter-pantser continuum).

I could actually go on and on here, now that I've started. Green is the color I associate with being both a vegetarian and an evironmentalist. Olive green represents peace. And I can relate those things to writing, too. But, the dh and the five star general are back from their trip to park. And the house is still a mess. And I still have to finish rewriting my current chapter. And this is way long already:)

I'll leave you with this quote--

"If I keep a green bough in my heart, then the singing bird will come."
--chinese proverb

I'm thinking rich, deep, emerald green like the willingness to write, to be a writer, an artist-- showing up in the garden, fresh every day-- and the little bird is my muse singing a story straight into my imagination.

Till next time--

Cheers and happy writing,
Alyson