Annelies Pool's Blog, page 4
March 24, 2011
On burning my journals
I started to burn thirty years worth of journals on Tuesday. It was a brilliant spring day when meltwater dripped, whiskeyjacks chirruped and winter's back was broken. As I fed the pages into the bonfire, I realized that I was engaged in the ancient ritual of shedding old skin in order to expose the new.
Many people have questioned the wisdom of burning these journals.
The journals I burnt were not memories, reflections or stories. Rather they were a spewing forth of raw emotion, of anger, of jealousy, obsession, heartbreak. I have been on a healing journey these last thirty years, and the journals represent a purging of my inner poison. They are rambling, repetitive, disjointed and embarrassing. They are intensely personal. I shudder at the thought that anybody else should read them.
Nonetheless, I kept them for many years because I thought I might use them as material for the inner workings of fictional characters. This was not the case. I would fill up a notebook, throw it into a box and never look at it again. In time, I began to understand that the art of these journals was in the process, not the result.
The process of journaling has been, and continues to be, a ritual and prayer for me. It is a process of becoming and it has influenced everything else I've written. Its power comes from its utter privacy. All that is good and true in the journals has been carved in my heart, the rest has no value.
I decided to burn them last year when I was on an turbulent airplane. I have a fear of flying and whenever a plane starts to bump and shake, I think I'm going to die. As the plane rollicked through the clouds, I panicked that people would read my journals.
When I fed the pages into the bonfire last Tuesday, I felt cleansed of the turmoil of the past. As writing them had been a process of becoming, so was the burning of them. A story of death and renewal, of a spring day when snow drips and whiskyjacks chirrup as winter's back is broken.
March 11, 2011
Facebook Status Angst
One day several people tell me they like the things I post on my Facebook status.
At first I am delighted.
Then my delight morphs into a serious case of Facebook Status Angst.
I begin to imagine that the Facebook world waits in breathless anticipation of my daily status report and I feel pressured to live up to the expectations of my fans. I feel I have post something diabolically brilliant every day.
My mind goes blank. The only post I can think of is "I want a sandwich."
It reminds me of the birthday card signing trauma where I get into thinking that because I am a writer, something more, something heart-warming, inspiring and original is expected of me. All I can ever think of writing is "happy birthday."
As I look at my blank Facebook status box, I began to wish I were cause person." People who are passionately devoted to a cause never have a problem coming up with a Facebook status. They just post links and comments about their cause, or causes.
While I admire people who are called to better the world through activism in various causes, I have never been a cause person. My contribution is to try to remember that everybody is part of our common humanity and to view them with respect and an open heart, regardless of whether I agree with what they're doing or saying. I've managed to actually do this for moments at a time and maybe those moments reverberate throughout the world.
But I digress. This isn't about my philosophy of life but about Facebook where I am still looking at a blank status box while my status fans wait breathlessly in the wings for another brilliant witticism.
Or so I imagine.
It occurs to me that I am being absolutely ridiculous. I laugh and post "human beings are most ridiculous species on the face of the earth."
February 1, 2011
I am NOT on a Mission from God
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All my life, I have fought being a writer. I have often wished I could be happy as a with nine to five job that I do day in and day out with a good salary, a pension plan, house in the suburbs instead of the bush and 2.5 children. If that were the case, I would certainly have more money than I do now (especially if I put the children to work). But whenever I've tried this, I've become stressed and miserable.
I have to write. When I don't, I get depressed and disconnected and the meaning falls out of my life. I am one of those fortunate people who has discovered fairly early in life what it is I am here to do, although it has taken me a lifetime to fully embrace that knowledge (and it takes only a moment to lose it).
If I had trusted in the beginning, it would have been much easier.
So it goes. Trust has never been a strong suit of mine (my strong suit has always been clubs).
I know don't who or what decided that I had to be a writer. For a time I entertained the notion that I was on a Mission from God. I would get up in the morning and try to put myself into a trance, hoping to the get the connection and that the exact words that I was chosen to give the world would flow through me like mercury. I imagined publishing best-sellers that would impact the lives of millions and filling stadiums with my fans. When the words didn't flow, as sometimes they don't, I would fall into a morass of fear and self-pity because here I was FAILING in my Mission from God.
Being on a Mission from God was too stressful (and there weren't enough parties). So I gave it up.
Now I just try to accept the simpler truth: I have to write. For whatever reason (it could be a brain malfunction for all I know), I have to write in order to be at peace.
And if I am made to write, there must be somebody who needs to read what I've written. Whether that is one person, a hundred, a thousand or a million, I don't know. (I haven't entirely given up on the millions . . . and the stadiums and . . . oh dear. . . shut up. I really don't know where THAT came from.)
All I ask is that I write the best I can and that I find the way, through traditional publishing or otherwise, to reach whomever is intended to read what I have written. (And that I get a best-seller, and have a book tour during which I will be slim and younger and well-dressed and rich and. . . hey, that's not true. I'm not really like this. Honest!)
All my life, I have fought being a writer. I have often wished I could be happy as a with nine to five job that I do day in and day out with a good salary, a pension plan, house in the suburbs instead of the bush and 2.5 children. If that were the case, I would certainly have more money than I do now (especially if I put the children to work). But whenever I've tried this, I've become stressed and miserable.
I have to write. When I don't, I get depressed and disconnected and the meaning falls out of my life. I am one of those fortunate people who has discovered fairly early in life what it is I am here to do, although it has taken me a lifetime to fully embrace that knowledge (and it takes only a moment to lose it).
If I had trusted in the beginning, it would have been much easier.
So it goes. Trust has never been a strong suit of mine (my strong suit has always been clubs).
I know don't who or what decided that I had to be a writer. For a time I entertained the notion that I was on a Mission from God. I would get up in the morning and try to put myself into a trance, hoping to the get the connection and that the exact words that I was chosen to give the world would flow through me like mercury. I imagined publishing best-sellers that would impact the lives of millions and filling stadiums with my fans. When the words didn't flow, as sometimes they don't, I would fall into a morass of fear and self-pity because here I was FAILING in my Mission from God.
Being on a Mission from God was too stressful (and there weren't enough parties). So I gave it up.
Now I just try to accept the simpler truth: I have to write. For whatever reason (it could be a brain malfunction for all I know), I have to write in order to be at peace.
And if I am made to write, there must be somebody who needs to read what I've written. Whether that is one person, a hundred, a thousand or a million, I don't know. (I haven't entirely given up on the millions . . . and the stadiums and . . . oh dear. . . shut up. I really don't know where THAT came from.)
All I ask is that I write the best I can and that I find the way, through traditional publishing or otherwise, to reach whomever is intended to read what I have written. (And that I get a best-seller, and have a book tour during which I will be slim and younger and well-dressed and rich and. . . hey, that's not true. I'm not really like this. Honest!)
January 21, 2011
Have I told you lately how great I am?
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Everybody says I gotta do it, but self-promotion ain't easy.
I'm a writer, for God's sakes, a person who is at her best spinning wild fantasies alone in a room while indulging in demonic laughter or heartfelt tears. I spend my time communing with characters, the kind of people that most of you believe don't really exist.
I wasn't brought up to brag. I was brought up to say nice things about others but never about myself.
Besides, I'm the sensitive sort. When I'm telling you about how great my book is, I will notice by the rise of your eyebrow, the twitch of your lip or that slight glaze in your eyes that you really don't believe me. I'm so sensitive I even have trouble promoting myself to my own characters and they're supposed to be my creations and do what I say. (Of course, they do tend to be cheeky and they're never too shy to tell me to shut up). I feel down deep inside that if something is meant to happen, it will. I like to set my creations free and let them make their own way in the world.
In fact, I believe the best communication plan is to sit by the phone and wait for it to ring. Whatever will be will be.
Problem is this isn't working.
So I guess I gotta get down and dirty and self-promote like everybody else.
Hey, have I told you lately how great I am?
Everybody says I gotta do it, but self-promotion ain't easy.
I'm a writer, for God's sakes, a person who is at her best spinning wild fantasies alone in a room while indulging in demonic laughter or heartfelt tears. I spend my time communing with characters, the kind of people that most of you believe don't really exist.
I wasn't brought up to brag. I was brought up to say nice things about others but never about myself.
Besides, I'm the sensitive sort. When I'm telling you about how great my book is, I will notice by the rise of your eyebrow, the twitch of your lip or that slight glaze in your eyes that you really don't believe me. I'm so sensitive I even have trouble promoting myself to my own characters and they're supposed to be my creations and do what I say. (Of course, they do tend to be cheeky and they're never too shy to tell me to shut up). I feel down deep inside that if something is meant to happen, it will. I like to set my creations free and let them make their own way in the world.
In fact, I believe the best communication plan is to sit by the phone and wait for it to ring. Whatever will be will be.
Problem is this isn't working.
So I guess I gotta get down and dirty and self-promote like everybody else.
Hey, have I told you lately how great I am?
January 4, 2011
How to avoid writing a novel (or anything else): 15 tips even you can follow
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If you feel like you are in danger of writing a novel and your life has become unmanageable, here are 15 easy tips to get your writing life back under control:
1. Wait for the exact moment for inspiration to strike.
2. Update your facebook status.
3. Wait until you've had a stellar night's sleep and you are in tip-top condition.
4. Check your facebook newsfeed.
5. Surf the Net for inspirational stories that will help with your novel.
6. Check to see if anybody's written any new reviews about your last book.
7. Check facebook.
8. Answer all outstanding emails.
9. Read the Globe and Mail book section online and imagine somebody reviewing your novel.
10. Write a new facebook status.
11. Visualize your book tour.
12. Compose answers to interview questions about how much of your novel is autobiographical.
13. Check facebook.
14. Play 20 games of spider solitaire to calm your conscious mind so your subconscious mind can work on plot details.
15. Check facebook.
AND when all else fails: write a blog about how to avoid writing your novel.
If you feel like you are in danger of writing a novel and your life has become unmanageable, here are 15 easy tips to get your writing life back under control:
1. Wait for the exact moment for inspiration to strike.
2. Update your facebook status.
3. Wait until you've had a stellar night's sleep and you are in tip-top condition.
4. Check your facebook newsfeed.
5. Surf the Net for inspirational stories that will help with your novel.
6. Check to see if anybody's written any new reviews about your last book.
7. Check facebook.
8. Answer all outstanding emails.
9. Read the Globe and Mail book section online and imagine somebody reviewing your novel.
10. Write a new facebook status.
11. Visualize your book tour.
12. Compose answers to interview questions about how much of your novel is autobiographical.
13. Check facebook.
14. Play 20 games of spider solitaire to calm your conscious mind so your subconscious mind can work on plot details.
15. Check facebook.
AND when all else fails: write a blog about how to avoid writing your novel.
