Penelope Baldwin's Blog, page 6

Do-Overs: Everything I Write is bad

…the first time  I write it. Aaaaaand the second time. By the third time, I can usually read it without raising an eyebrow. After that I only have two or three edits left before...

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Adventures in Do-overs…Everything I Write is Terrible…

…the first time  I write it. Aaaaaand the second time. By the third time, I can usually read it without raising an eyebrow. After that I only have two or three edits left before it starts to make sense to the rest of the world.

You’ll have to trust me when I tell you that inside my head, I’m overflowing with insight and perception.I’m pretty sure somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain is a Nobel prize winning novel, but it’s buried underneath reams of untapped emotions,  random thoughts and 1980s music lyrics. Then when my brain cells align at just the write moment, and I think of something meaningful, it somehow gets lost in translation.

Sometimes I’ll write something, and I’ll just KNOW that it came directly from the depths of my soul. Then when I return to read it a second time, it sounds like the kind of thing I imagine a drunk eight -year old would write. (If an eight-year old got drunk-which they should never do.)

But that’s one of the many amazing and magnificent things about writing-the art of infinite do-over.

Have you ever had a moment where you said something then immediately tried to un-say it? (It almost never works.) I remember once someone called his child “honey” and I thought they said, “Penny” so I answered his question. It wasn’t until much later that I realized why he looked at me like I was crazy. By then it was too late to tell them, “By the way, I don’t think you have a pet name for me, I just didn’t hear what you said.”

In chemistry, if you try a random experiment with ingredients you have lying around, you could potentially blow-up your surroundings, if not yourself. But with words, you can  mix them in any way you want with reckless abandon. You can design a person, give them a history and a personality then throw them in the middle of a world you created. And if you don’t like the results?

Erase it.

For me, editing is like solving a puzzle. The words line up, single file on the page, waiting for you to find the story within them. And sometimes the perfect word comes along,  or you tangle your words in just the right way, and your writing takes on a life of its own.

That’s when I rewrite. And rewrite. And…yep, rewrite. Because when I find something worth saying, I want to protect it. I want to give it a chance to grow and give life to others.  I want it to say as much as possible with as few words as necessary.  And I want to give my characters a chance to be heard.

In the end, I erase more than I write. I change more than I keep. And I give up what I love as much as I throw out the bad.

I use my do-overs, over and over again.

And you read what’s left.

Some words. A few sentences. Some paragraphs. My heart.

This is my life. Edited.

 

 

 

 

Anxiety- A Life from Moths to Monsters

In my book, Eliza, one of the main characters, has social anxiety. By the time the book starts, she’s learning to live life after getting help. I wrote her to show an honest depiction...

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Moths to Monsters- Adventures with Anxiety

In my book, Eliza, one of the main characters, has social anxiety. By the time the book starts, she’s learning to live life after getting help. I wrote her to show an honest depiction of a teenager who’s navigating life after anxiety.

It was an easy character to write. Not only have I lived with anxiety, but I’ve seen it in people I love. I know the struggles, and I feel the pain.

The thing about anxiety is that it doesn’t always make sense. And when we try to dissect it and put it under a microscope, we only see distorted images of what it truly means. You can live with it and not understand it. You can see it in someone you care about but not know how to help.

This is my best attempt to put it into words.

To me, anxiety is a monster.

Only it doesn’t start out that way. That would be too easy. When you wake up with a sore throat and a fever, you go to the doctor. You feel it in all its intensity at once. You know it. You define it.

But with anxiety, it starts out more like a moth; it eats away a little bit of you at a time. You may not even notice it. A disgruntled word your way, eyes rolled in your direction. You may never know why someone reacted to you the way they did, but you latch on to it.

Everyone has moments that make them feel less. It comes from being human. But they brush them off, move on and live their lives. But you…you’re wired differently. You feel it, and it sticks with you.

But you don’t even realize it. After all, the feeling’s like a tiny moth that barely took a thread from you….but it’s there.

And you start to wonder. Should I worry? Am I wrong?

Until the piece of thread turns into a miniscule hole, barely noticeable- but still there.

And the moth’s inside you, without your knowledge or permission, eating away at you little by little.

People tell you not to worry. And they’re right, you shouldn’t. You know that.

But you do anyway.

A well-meaning loved one tells you everything’s fine. And you believe them.

But the feeling’s still there.

Because the moth has been lazily eating away at you a little at a time. And its thoughts have become your thoughts. When they say, “It’s okay.” You hear, “It’s not good enough.” When you make a decision, the uneasiness tells you you’re mistaken.

Sometimes that’s when you notice something’s wrong.

Most the time, it isn’t.

Because it’s happened bit by bit, in such small ways that it’s become a part of you. And you think this is who you are.

Then the moth grows large enough that it affects you.

But you don’t know why.

You try to sleep…but you can’t. You try to concentrate… but your focus seems wild, untamed. You want to listen…but you realize too late that you didn’t.

But you can’t describe it. You don’t know how to fix it. You try. Over and over you try. Instead… you make the moth bigger…and bigger. Because you’re worried, and you don’t even know it’s there. You’re losing part of yourself

…but it’s being replaced.

Your thoughts aren’t your thoughts…but you think they are. When your mind tells you to worry, you think it’s real. And when you start to think people don’t like you or that you’re making all the wrong choices or that you’re not good enough, you believe it.

Because after all- if you’re thinking it, it must be true… right?

But what you don’t realize is this moth’s been inside you for weeks, days, maybe even years, and it’s become a part of you, and it makes you think things that aren’t true…and you never even knew it existed.

Until it becomes a monster.

Sometimes you realize something’s wrong before then. Sometimes you get help.

Many times you don’t.

Then one day, it becomes too much. You have a panic attack. Or you can’t sleep anymore. Or you feel sick, or depressed or worried- every day, all the time. Even if there’s nothing to worry about, the feelings linger.

And you don’t know why. And when you tell someone… if you tell someone, they say, “Don’t worry.” They tell you you’re overthinking, that everything’s fine.

But that doesn’t work. Because you know you shouldn’t worry, but the monster’s still inside you, lounging below the surface. So you don’t know why you can’t sleep or make decisions.

You know something’s wrong. And now, you ask for help…hopefully.

Because knowing you shouldn’t worry isn’t making you stop worrying. And life is becoming more difficult even though you know it doesn’t need to be. And you know-YOU KNOW- that this isn’t how you’re supposed to feel. But you don’t know how to stop it.

Because anxiety has become a monster. And it’s living inside you. And because it’s been inside you for so long, you don’t know how to live without it. You don’t know how to stop it. Even when you finally get help, and someone tells you about the monster they call anxiety, you feel like it’s part of you now… that this monster is who you are.

But it’s not.

Because monsters aren’t real.

And once you believe that, you heal.

Slowly.

Cautiously.

With patience.

You heal.

And you realize those thoughts don’t have to be your thoughts. And that feeling doesn’t have to live inside you.

Then you realize there’s more to you.

You’re more than the worry and the fear. You’re more than the racing heart, the clammy hands, the shortness of breath, the nausea… the million different ways that anxiety grips you. You’re more.

You’re you.

Then you navigate your new life. It’s not perfect. Traces of those feelings still exist, and when extreme situations arise, they tend to spring forth like a geyser.

But you know it won’t last. You know you have to keep going. You have to take chances that, to someone else, might not seem like you’re taking a chance at all.

But to you it’s big.

Because it reminds you that the voice in the back of your head that tells you to be afraid is just a monster trying to fool you.

But it’s okay. You ignore him. Because even though what you’re going through is very real, you know these thoughts are not.

Because monsters aren’t real.

My Bad Review- Proud Firsts

A bad review. You know it’s coming. You expect it. Not everyone is going to get your work, right? Do you think maybe, if Ernest Hemingway was alive today, his quote would sound something more like...

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Proud Firsts: The Day I Googled My First Bad Review

Do you think maybe, if Ernest Hemingway was alive today, his quote would sound something more like this?

“There is nothing to writing. You just sit down at a computer, write a book, then bleed out through your eyeballs once the publishing process sets in.”

Because, at least for me, the anemia I experienced from writing my book was nothing compared to the wonderful world of amazon.com…and goodreads.com… and all the other places that shelve millions of books, just waiting to be picked by the right bibliophile, who will love it and take care of it and share his/her five star rating with everyone.

Just for the sake of perspective, Ernest Hemingway’s ” The Old Man and the Sea” got a 3.68 on Goodreads….Ernest Hemingway- the guy who won both a Nobel prize and a Pulitzer for his writing.

It’s easier than ever to be a critic. While still in your pajamas, you can pop open your computer from your living room couch and let the world how much you loved/ hated/could have written your latest read. And the best part? No one even needs to know who you are.

So, you write your book…publish it…and wait for the reviews to roll in- yep, the bad ones too.

Even if you’ve never written anything more than, “have a great summer” in someone’s yearbook, you can still imagine what it might be like to have strangers read whats been in your head then tell you how much they didn’t like it.

I don’t have to imagine it. In fact, I can tell you all about it. I remember my first bad review like it was yesterday…

A shiny, gold one star review for my book, “Being Invisible”- and it was from someone in Germany. And it wasn’t in English. So I had to use google translate to read my own terrible review. It went something like this-

 “I have read the book to 2/3 and hoped for an act . Unfortunately no avail . Even if the last third would have surprised me even more positive, it may unfortunately not be a good book . Pity about the wasted time.” And it was titled,  “Zeitverschwendung,”  which means, “waste of time.” 

So, although something might have gotten lost in translation from German to English, I think the gist is that the reader values his time, and my book seriously impeded it.

I’m  hoping that something might have been lost in translation when they read it too, and that’s why they thought it was so bad. We may never know. But I appreciate the comment nonetheless. When writing my second novel, (A House Made of Bricks- coming soon in case you were wondering,) I worked really hard at making it a lot better at not wasting your time.

The important thing to remember is that we’ve all been there. We’ve all had moments when we knew we’d done something special, only to find out that someone else thought it was a huge zeitverschwendung. So as writers, readers, friends and family, we should always do what we can to encourage each other. But we can also help remind each other not to take it to seriously when it doesn’t turn out how you wanted. And just to give you a reminder, I leave you with this-

“…he’s a short story guy. And he knows how to write about kids. This book though, it’s too long. Gets kind of monotonous. And he should’ve cut out a lot about these jerks and all that crumby school. They depress me.”
-A writer from the New York Times…about “The Catcher in the Rye.”

 

 

 

Adventures in Giving Up

It all started with an idea.

My dad loved to make a difference in other people’s lives. In fact, he’d go out of his way to help someone in need. Unfortunately, that meant he was sometimes late for family functions…most family functions actually. When he arrived, he always had an amazing story about saving someone who was stranded on the side of the road, or a neighbor whose house almost flooded until he stepped in. As his family, we were both really proud of him and mildly irritated that he couldn’t get to school events or holiday gatherings on time.

That got me thinking. Imagine what it would be like if someone you loved was a superhero? Wouldn’t it be amazing to know that your loved one could save the world? But then…wouldn’t it get frustrating too? In the movies, the hero sweeps the lady off her feet then flies off into the sunset…or catches her in his web or something…whatever super guys do to woo a woman. But what about after?

Wouldn’t it be hard to compete with the fate of the world?

From that, my novel Being Invisible was born. I’d never written anything longer than a college essay, but I didn’t let that deter me. I had perseverance… and insomnia- which gave me both the time and the anxiety I needed to write.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t hit roadblocks along the way- I’m pretty sure I hit every roadblock along the way- but that made it all the more worthwhile when I finally finished.

As far as the book goes, as one person wrote, “I was on a roller coaster ride. My emotions ran from full on crying, to anger, depression and joy…but mostly crying.” Unfortunately, that person was me, and it was mostly because I didn’t put in page breaks or format chapters ahead of time.

Whenever I was ready to toss in the towel or, more accurately, throw the book against a wall, I kept one thing in my mind- that I wanted to teach my kids not to give up. I wanted them to see that no matter how hard things got, how many times I wished I was writing in an actual book and not typing on a computer so I could actually throw it against the wall, it was all worth it in the end.

And so I did it. I finished the book. Figured out the #*$@ing formatting (and to always do it ahead of time for those that haven’t started their book yet and are as clueless as I was.) Put together a cover. Self-published it on Amazon then posted it on Facebook for all my friends to see.

I did it.

Flash forward several weeks. After the initial excitement over the fact that I wrote a whole book wore off, I realized something. I just let a whole bunch of people see a whole book’s worth of stuff I wrote. That’s over 50,000 words worth of judgment.

And it wasn’t just there. In order to get exposure, I started a blog and a Facebook page. If you googled P.L. Baldwin (as I was called back then) my name came up in the first page of searches. But I didn’t have many reviews. And I didn’t get many sales.

So, I thought…”Wow. I just put out a terrible book and told everyone about it.”

I’m sure it had nothing to do with the other millions of books for sale on Amazon, or the fact that I’d worked hard to sell it for oh, about three months.

I stopped the sale of my book, took down my website and stopped blogging.

I stressed out… and gave up. I did exactly what I wanted my kids not to do.

But I didn’t even see it that way…not until my daughter came home from school one day and said, “I told my teacher about your book, and she’s going to buy it!” I couldn’t bear to tell her I wasn’t selling it anymore. So, that night went on Amazon and put my book back on.

But that’s the last I did for it. I was done.

Until now.

I couldn’t help it. The idea for my second book hung around in my head until I finally gave up and wrote a chapter. Then another. Until I had to finish it to see how it turned out.

And this time I’m going to teach my kids how to learn from their mistakes, by learning from mine,  and how to use what they’ve learned to help others- by helping others to avoid the same mistakes I made.

So… stay tuned as I share my embarrassing stories, the things I’ve learned (mostly the hard way) and how not giving up is almost always the right thing -even if it’s not in the way that you thought.