Writing Is My Soul

My throat is tight, my vision is blurry, and I suddenly forget how to speak English. Well, it is my second language after all.  I am about to read my piece to a group of writers for a critique.  My opinion wavers between it being courageously brilliant and the worst kind of amateurish junk.  The piece is too exposed, sentimental and may be perceived as whiny.  The title alone warns the reader to stay away or armor themselves with the box of tissues: A Hole In My Heart.

As I start reading, gripping the paper in my clammy hands, I can hardly let the words past my lips, but the further I get, the louder my voice becomes.  I become acutely aware of my accented pronunciation, checking off wrong vowels in my mind.  By the end of the reading, it becomes a total out-of -body experience, like the one I had when I uttered the words "I do" in front of the judge, frozen still, but yearning to run away screaming.  All that time I kept thinking what I have gotten myself into, but kept on with the wedding.  So it is here now.  What HAVE I gotten myself into?  But I can't turn back.

I finish the piece strong, but relieved to get it over with.  There is silence.  A kind looking lady becomes teary-eyed at my courage to touch upon such raw emotion.  Another lady, the Christian mystery writer, suggests to add more imagery.  A man, struggling with a chapter in his novel since last year, warns against using too many adjectives.  I gratefully accept all their feedback.  But then things get out of control.

A polished, conceited journalist of Indian descent, in his immaculate pompous Queen's English, armed with a pen and glasses on the tip of his nose, starts meticulously dissecting all my errors, stylistic and grammatical, one by one. He is a newcomer like me, having just joined the writer's group with his beautiful wife, who quietly sits  looking regal and embarrassed at the same time.  The Indian journalist's demeanor is not unlike a strict spinster grammar Nazi, your worst nightmare of a teacher, who gleefully punishes students with the red-penned fat "F"s.  He sees it as his highest mission to reduce me to dust.  I try to defend my choice of grammar; being an English teacher after all, I would presume I know what I'm talking about.

The discussion gets more heated  when he gets to the phrase "paranoid thoughts".  The opinions fly across the table.  Some love this phrase, while others just don't get why I used it.  Perhaps they never have experienced those thoughts, lying awake at three in the morning, lucky chaps.  The meeting starts resembling a fencing duel, with the journalist trying to stab me with his corrections, me parrying with my arguments, and his retreating before attempting the next attack. The duel is gracefully stopped by the referee, the writer's group leader.

In the end, no one is left indifferent about my writing, but I am left confused.  I feel like I've become a sacrificial lamb on the altar of literary critique, or should I say criticism, as the journalist would correct me.

As soon as the meeting is over, I stumble past the colorful shiny book covers, beckoning me to leaf through their crisp pages and better yet purchase them.  I don't know what to do.  Should I follow their temptations, like a kid in a candy store?  Should I go straight home?  Where is my car?  What time is it?  Who am I?  Outside I smoke a cigarette in the hazy humid night.  I should have listened to my mother.  I should have never written anything so personal, let alone shown it to a group of strangers.  I should have stayed home and never ventured out into this dangerous cruel world.

I mull over the situation, unsure whether to laugh or cry.  It undoubtedly looked comical, which I will probably realize later, when my ego is feeling less wounded and stripped.  And crying comes much more naturally to me.  So I do what I do best -- I cry and vow to quit writing forever.

************

In the middle of the night, I am consumed by nightmares where writers take votes for every single word I wrote, with the journalist being against me, and the kind ladies cheering me on.  From deep inside me comes a message sharp and clear, like the voice of God calling upon Moses from the Burning Bush.  Writing is not just a hobby for my soul.  Writing IS my soul.  And no one can take that away from me.

A Novel in a MONTH??!!

What have I gotten myself into?!

So I have been on a self-flagellating roll lately and really under the weather about the whole me-as-a-writer thing.  I mean, I submitted an essay and a poem to Christian Science Monitor, and no reply, which means that they are not planning to publish me.  And if I were a Pollyanna, I would just brush it off, and submit something else somewhere else, but I am not. What I am is an Eeyore. And a very pessimistic one too.

Then somewhere I don't even remember where, I saw some information about the site NaNoWriMo http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/ , and I decided to check it out.  This is an organization that encourages their users, who are struggling like me and not-so-struggling writers, to write a novel IN ONE MONTH! They've declared November as a National Novel Writing Month, and in their own words,
 "National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30."

So I decided to register with them and take on the challenge.  I made my profile and novel description: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/641593 . And that's regardless of the fact that I will be working in November, probably teaching Advanced Grammar and Writing class and being buried under the piles of students' essays, housework, and wifely duties.  Hey, what doesn't kill me - makes me stronger, right?

What's the most fascinating is that people actually DO finish their novels in 30 days, and they DO publish them (albeit after numerous editing). With the REAL publishers like RANDOM HOUSE and HARPER COLLINS!  And even though my novel is not a romance, but bravely self-appointed into the genre of literary fiction, I hope it will find its publisher too.

What I need now is a writer's prayer.  And Holy %^&*, I just found one online:
http://www.inspirationforwriters.com/writinglife/prayer.html

AMEN