Four questions, many answers, lots of links

The quirky and wonderful Magpie has tagged me for a blog tour titled, "My Writing Process". This is not the type of thing I usually do, but hey -- it's worth a try. Maybe I'll learn something. Or perhaps you will.

1. What are you working on?

Way, way too many things. Last week I finished four editing projects that will pay most of this month's bills, and I have two books-in-progress of my own (one fiction, one non). I also write a weekly blog for Guideposts, the quarterly newsletter for the Mood Disorders Support Group, and a monthly direct mail letter. I have contributed to Daily Guideposts annually for the better part of two decades. I write a lot.

2. What makes your work different from others' work in the same genre?

I love to connect disparate ideas. One of my key beliefs about life is that there's always another way to look at it. This gives me the courage to pick up a problem or thought and turn it over and over and peer at it from many angles. I step into it, I step back from it, I walk around it. To me, life is very much like an impressionist painting, and I find that what seems entirely dark and blotchy up close may have context from a distance.

3. Why do you write what you do?
Because it might be helpful (or at least interesting) to someone else. I used to journal regularly, but haven't for 15+ years. I find writing for myself is boring. I have to listen to myself all day long in my head, anyway; it's more productive to think outside myself, to try to move from a specific issue to a meta-problem.

I also think that being transparent about my struggles is sometimes the one way I can bring something good out of what appears to be bad. Parenting is sometimes very hard. Having a child (or children) with a mental illness is awful; having a husband who is clinically depressed is an enormous challenge; being in financial straights for year after year is draining. I'm not the only person who goes through tough stuff, and even if you haven't gone through the exact same things, if my inch of progress translates into a single millimeter of making your life easier, that helps us both.

I also write because I get paid. This may not be a lofty reason, but feeding my children is not a crass goal. They have a way of wanting to eat, every day.

I write the way that I do because it's through wrestling with words that I gain clarity of thought. Seeing words written out makes me weigh them: do they ring true? Are they an accurate picture of what I believe? Can someone who doesn't have the same beliefs still understand what I'm writing about?

4. How does your writing process work?

Since I work on many projects at once, people tend to assume I am a master multitasker. I am not. Multitasking is like letting all my kids talk at once: it's inefficient. What works for me is to be 1000% attentive to one thing at a time. What's unusual (I guess) is that I can handle disparate projects in rapid progression. I am good at working intently for even a 10-minute block of time; much of the thinking and organizing happens when I'm not at the computer. This is partly a matter of temperament, but mostly a matter of self-training. I usually don't have time to be inefficient. I have a lot of back burners.

Most of my writing is non-fiction that ranges from 300-1200 words. Most of it is centered on my own ideas, not facts. This means I have to generate ideas constantly, and distill my thoughts so each piece has no extraneous thoughts in it. 

Many people think that writing is about wordsmithing, but for me the hard work lies in thinking clearly and organizing ideas well. I prioritize flow over phraseology; it used to kill me to have to toss out exquisite lines, until I realized craftsmanship is about the overall message, not individual sentences. 

People occasionally note that I don't provide a blogroll on this site. I actively rotate the sites I follow so I do not live in a bubble of my personal interests. I currently follow Scouting NY (by a guy who scouts movie locations), Mind Hacks (neuroscience), Hack Education (education reform), Katya's Non-Profit Marketing blog (what it says), the British Library's site on medieval manuscripts, Psych Central News and the philosopher/teacher/author Diana Seneschal. 

Another reason I don't have a blogroll is because I dislike being labelled. I am a practicing Catholic whose three best friends are a liberal Jew, an athiest, and a conservative Protestant. When I write on this blog I want to be able to communicate with any thinking person, not just those who share my faith or political beliefs, or personal interests, or...

As part of this blog tour I'm to tag two other writers. The first person I want you to visit is Elizabeth Duffy, a mother of six who lives in rural Indiana and blogs for Patheos. If you're not Catholic, read her anyway; she's thoughtful and strong and honest about her weaknesses.  

The second person is -- well, I didn't find one. I asked several writers who shied away from wanting to "tag" someone for the next round. Then there are a couple of wonderful writers who either don't have blogs, or have lives that so full right now that I didn't want to ask (Maggie May Etheridge, I loved this poem.)

Perhaps that makes me a dud on the blog tour. But there are many wonderful authors out there, and perhaps you can share some of your favorites with me. That will expand my world. 

Oh -- and go visit Magpie's blog. She tagged me for this shtick. And she's a great human being.

  

Boxes

Way back when Little Guy was in kindergarten, I went to parent-teacher conferences. As I sat down in the pint-size chair, the teacher smiled and said brightly, "You have a really out-of-the-box kid!"

This threw me a bit. The out-of-the-box spectrum in our family is pretty broad, and on that scale and by my reckoning Little Guy is fairly conventional. My instinct (which I did not indulge) was to reply, "Oh. How big is the box?" It's one thing to think outside a small shoebox, and another to think outside of a stone sarcophagus.

*         *         *          *

When my older kids were little and we read the Little House books, I was struck by how much Laura and Mary Ingalls did in the way of chores. My awareness of this was probably heightened because my children were not particularly cooperative about helping out. I realized that part of this was because I saw chores as a way to teach my children responsibility. I didn't actually need the kids to work to keep the family afloat the way Ma and Pa needed all hands at work.

Kids understand that kind of difference intuitively. Who wants to do work that's not strictly necessary? Who wants to do invented chores? Not me. Not them.

What my kids did need was play, so we played Little House. We used masking tape to measure out the size of a covered wagon on the floor, and then they had to decide what to bring along for the trip west, and fit it all in that rectangle. I think they did that for a full week, day after day, in costume, eating molasses on bread for lunch, and drinking cold water from a metal cup.

Eventually I asked them which chores they thought it was fair for kids their age to do in our day and age. At that point they were able to consider the question honestly.

I learned that it was better to ask "How much time do you think is fair for you to contribute to helping keep the house in order?" and "If you don't do it, then I'll have to. Do you think that's right?"

Reframing responsibility changed the shape of the box. But to change the box we all had to pretend to ride for a while in a covered wagon.

*        *         *         *

The very first day we began homeschooling, when Eldest was just-turned-five, I felt very far out of the box. It was scary and I thought I must be an Extremely Brave Woman.

By day two it wasn't so bad. We'd survived, after all. As with many things, only the first step involved bravery; often whatever's outside the box is intimidating simply because it's new.

It helps, when I'm feeling anxious, to determine how much of what I'm feeling is due to the existence of an unknown. It helps even more if, once I've admitted that I'm nervous about stepping into new territory, I remind myself, "It won't be new for long."

*         *         *         *

We have an inordinate number of boxes around our apartment these days. That is not to say that we are anywhere near ready to move. We still have a lot of painting to do before we can sell.

Anything I take out of a closet gets sorted into one of three piles -- keep, toss, give away -- and the things that are retained are boxed up before going back on a shelf. I'm intentional about what goes into my boxes nowadays.

I set aside a thing or two for Eldest, who is graduating from college a month from now, and has accepted a job at an ed-tech firm in the midwest. It is in a city I have never visited, a place I do not know.

Her move forces me to step out of a box I know and love, to let go in a way I have never had to let go before. Hopefully I will acclimate quickly to this new stage of being a mother, a mother-from-afar.

Boxes. Moving. Moving on. Sometimes the heart hurts when it's being stretched.

Self-reliance, ceilings, and learning

We've had workmen in the apartment all week. I hired them to fix the ceilings, a job I am utterly unwilling to do. A lifetime or so ago I spackled every joint in every piece of sheetrock in a three bedroom house. I didn't mind doing the walls, but I learned that the ceilings are worth paying someone else to do. They are a pain in the neck in every possible way.

I'm not sure I've ever hired someone to work before. It has been a learning experience, the kind one appreciates because it's useful to know how to do it. I have a deep aversion to hiring people to do what I think of as "my" manual labor.

Still, we have 1933-era ceilings, which means that when one scrapes a crack and a whole patch clunks off there is a real-plaster disaster. Had I done the work myself, the living room ceiling would have come partway down and I would have stared at it dolefully, wondering, Now how do I fix that?!? I am certain I would have spent three months learning how to properly repair a 3'x7' hole. Which would be fine, but at the moment it's better that I should learn to let a professional do it.

One side of my family is as classically do-it-yourself as it's possible to get. My dad grew up chipping old mortar off of used bricks after school, to use in the house his family was building (they did have help with the construction). When I was a kid, if something needed fixing, my dad looked at it and tinkered with it and ordered parts and patiently figured it out. That was good: children tend to think that adults were born knowing how to do everything perfectly and that it's just that they are inept. My dad wasn't shy about dispelling that notion, and I benefited from that. I think kids need to see their parents learning new things, and struggling to learn them. They need to see that perseverance is acquired, not congenital. (It is, admittedly, easier for some people to acquire than others!)  

Dad rototilling his garden at age 81.

Another influence in this vein was a friend in college who had an endless to-learn list. He was an architect and a mechanical engineer, a splendid photographer, a graphic artist, and a bit of a philosopher. He had languages he wanted to learn to speak (at the time he knew four), countries he wanted to explore, skills he was eager to acquire. Years later he put himself through an MD/PhD program by working as a caricaturist at corporate parties.

I thought that was cool; it hadn't occurred to me to envision a whole list of possibilities for myself of what to learn; I kind of thought one just meandered through the vague interest of the moment. To have a burning interest in expanding one's capabilities is awesome; heck, even to be willing to expand your competence beyond what you already know how to do is often unusual.

I do believe that a whole lot of our "I can't do that!" thinking boils down to "I don't know how to do that!" When you append the word yet to "I don't know how to do that!" it transforms your attitude. It shifts the focus away from the fear, and centers it squarely on something we do know how to do: learn.

So... I'm learning. This week I learned how to pay someone to fix my ceilings. Learning not to be entirely self-reliant is an important lesson, too.

A lot to do, a bit at a time

I've been busy spackling, purging closets and assessing ceilings to see what needs to be done before putting the apartment on the market. In a way this is stress-relieving: I've long had this cool idea for a vacation that involves sending everyone else away and hiring a dumpster. This is not because I'm a neat-freak, but because we  live in an apartment. There's no attic, no basement, no garage. Everything we own we live with, intimately. It is a relief to live with less.

*         *          *         *

I used to hate household chores. I'm still not fond of them, but I've made significant progress from my days as a single working woman, when I loathed doing laundry so much that I would buy extra underwear rather than waste a Saturday morning at the laundromat. The buy-more-undies attitude doesn't work when you have five kids.

I've long aspired to look at housework in the way I look at brushing my teeth: something I don't necessarily like, but can do without anguish or rancor because, well, it just needs to be done. One mindshift that's helped has been to think of chores as filler, rather as a separate (and hence onerous) list of things to do.

Honestly, this did not come about as a stroke of genius, but in a surge of desperation. (This is true for most of my ideas.) As I had to cram more and more (paid) writing into my day, I had less and less time to tend to the house. I found that whenever I came up against a mental logjam while writing, if I took a 10-minute break and tossed in a load of laundry (or wiped down the toilet and sink, vacuumed the living room carpet, etc), two good things happened. The first was that the physical labor cleared my mind so I could return to writing productively. The second was that things got done that needed doing.

The advantage of having formed this habit is that now when I get overwhelmed by the thought of moving, I can deal with the feeling effectively by plastering a crack in a wall. It's gratifying to transform stress into progress.

*         *         *        *

Still, moving is stressful. No one here wants to go, and I find myself in the position of having to drive the troops forward, relentlessly. I do not like having to do this, but I am intent on keeping things (and people) on track. Perhaps I am also finally old enough to be (mostly) past getting annoyed about having to do things I don't want to do.

My heart bleeds at odd moments. I cauterize the wounds by doing productive things. Do more, think less, I command myself. Focus on what needs to be done. There will be time to grieve later.

I used to say that one reason God made days 24 hours long was so that there would always be a 2 a.m. in which mothers could cry. For the next month or two I will be too tired to be awake then.

*        *         *         *

I am just entering the busy period of the spring. I am editing eight masters' theses and a PhD thesis proposal in the next six weeks, writing a quarterly newsletter, and doing my usual monthly and weekly projects. There's also Eldest's college graduation to think about, then Big Guy's high school commencement. Did I mention we're moving? Homeschooling? Eating?

Make it smaller, I tell myself. Look at just a little bit at a time. You can do this. You will do this. 

And then, as my inner child starts to whine that it's hard, too hard, and I don't wanna, I get out the putty knife and spackle, and fix another crack in the 1933-era wall. It's the nice thing about cracks: you can only fix one at a time. And when you've fixed one, things actually do look a bit better.

We have news

We will be moving.

Not far, probably. But we have to sell our apartment. We'll rent, we hope, in a neighborhood just north of here.

Several times a day Little Guy blurts out, "I'm distressed!" Andrew is unhappy. Big Guy is unhappy. Snuggler is unhappy, but at least she's busy with tech week for Oklahoma! Dancer is more matter-of-fact about the move, not thrilled but not miserable. I emailed Eldest about the news, but she didn't respond; she's probably more concerned about her last term at college and job interviews.

As for me, I have a ton of plastering and painting to do, so my energy is focused on keeping things moving forward. And frankly, I'm so relieved to have a plan in place that will finally resolve some of our financial issues that I am not thinking that much about the loss.

*         *          *          *

Big Guy has been accepted into a good local college. He is waiting now to find out if he was accepted into the honors program. This would be a big deal on many levels. For a smart kid who has never believed in himself, who has struggled with huge anxiety, who is just beginning to feel he can make it -- well, the honors program would be a huge vote of confidence from someone who's not Mom. Then, too, the honors program would mean free tuition. That would be a huge help, too. The decision will be mailed on the 15th.

*        *         *         *

I worked backstage most of this weekend at Dancer's spring workshop performances. Yesterday I slipped into the theater to watch the second half of the show. Brian Reeder choreographed a new piece for the school, and I wanted to see it from the front.

That man is so creative. He has choreographed a piece for the school for each of the past three years, and each one has been incredibly different. Decades ago I saw a cartoon in which two people were walking down the street: a regular shmo and Beethoven. The regular guy had a thought bubble above his head with a few simple notes in it. Beethoven had an ear worm, too, but his consisted of two clefs and multiple, complex chord progressions. Some people (not me!) think in complex harmonies. Others, like Brian Reeder, think in visual harmonies. Impressive.

The other wow about seeing the piece was realizing my daughter has made huge progress this year. I knew that already, in the way that mothers do, in a view-from-the-wings kind of way. I'm not the type to be lavish with praise. But y'know: she was good.

*        *         *        *

Snuggler's Oklahoma! performances are the next two weekends. We've heard rave reviews from the director, which is unusual. It's the older kids' production, so they're doing three-part harmonies. If you want details on performance times, email me. Snuggler's in the chorus, so she's in every cast. And it's the director's last big show before he leaves... to become a monk.

Control, self-control, and what to do when it's lacking

One of the more useful skills I've acquired in the past decade (or perhaps mostly acquired; I'm still inconsistent) is the ability to live with uncertainty. This is something that was not on my bucket list. Then again, most of what I've learned and most of the ways I've grown in the past decade weren't on my bucket list. Eventually, perhaps, one learns that "What I want to do with my life" is a pretty useless concept. "What kind of person I want to be" is a goal that's more adaptable to the variety of circumstances that life sends your way.

Uncertainty is difficult to deal with. We are human and terrestrial: we don't like being up in the air. Of course, we're almost always up there -- we just don't perceive it that way. One can argue that we need the illusion of being in control, but that's an oversimplification. There are things within our grasp, things we need to control: tempers and spending and the rate at which water flows into the bathtub and other such stuff.

There are also things we'd like to control, like careers and children's behavior and whether or not people we love return our affection, or are capable of returning it. We'd like to control the outcome of health problems and mental deterioration, of birth defects and learning disabilities.We'd like to control pain, discomfort, and the suffering of others.

I suppose we'd like someone, somewhere, to take control of the people who take guns to malls or drink before driving. Probably we don't want to have to do that ourselves, because it might put us at risk. The idea that someone else's problems might wreak havoc with our semi-orderly lives is terrifying. I supposed because we have no way to control that.

*         *         *         *

The other day I read a passage from Made to Stick to Little Guy about military planning, and it included the Army adage, "No plan survives ten minutes of contact with the enemy." He liked that. We talked about why it's important to make plans, but foolish to expect things to go as planned. We make plans so that we've thought through the issues and options, and are familiar with the problem to the extent that we can see it.

Little Guy also liked the idea of Commander's Intent, which is a succinct directive designed to allow anyone at any level to understand the goal, yet modify action as circumstances require. A large part of success when you're under fire (whether in battle or parenting) is determined by being able to keep the goal in sight, as you use your judgment in figuring out how to reach it.

Commander's Intent acknowledges that we can't control all circumstances; what we can do is respond to changing conditions in a manner that's in keeping with our objectives.

*        *        *        *

I sometimes ponder how people adapt to situations over which they have minimal or no control. How does one deal with living in a war zone? What does a woman sold into white slavery do to find the courage to go on? How does the mindset of a street orphan in Cairo differ from mine?

I recently read The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It by Kelly McGonigal. (I am, in fact, reading a half-chapter aloud to Little Guy and Snuggler a couple of times a week as part of our homeschooling. It's truly excellent.)

One subchapter tells of the Nobel prize winning physiologist Archibald Hill, who explored the issue of exercise fatigue. He proposed the idea that we don't get tired because of muscle exhaustion, but because our brain sends a message that screams "STOP!" to prevent exhaustion. The thing is, just because the brain tells you you're too tired to go on doesn't mean you've reached your limit. It's a trick.

Interestingly, the same concept applies to self-control. Our brains tell us we can't stand to be patient a moment more -- and we believe them. But if your child's life depended on your patience, you'd find a way to curb your temper. We can stand far more than we want to. We can handle far more than we expect. The trouble arises when we start to believe we're trapped or stuck or have reached our limit before it's true.

*         *          *          *

Sometimes the answer to a difficult situation lies in flexibility rather than in control.

Sometimes the answer lies in patience.

Sometimes it is found in endurance.

And sometimes it simply isn't found. Sometimes what's asked of us is  to keep taking whatever steps we can take for as long as we can take them, even if we don't know where we will end up and don't think we can do it. If you can do that and still be true to your Commander's Intent, you are probably a hero even if you never become famous or your problems never go away.  

Birthday news

Today was my birthday. It started auspiciously: Andrew announced, "I caught you a mouse!"

This was good. We have been battling mice for six months, and though the battle has been in our favor for a while, the sightings lately have begun to exceed the captures.

Then my husband gave me a gift certificate for a massage. This is unusual on so many levels I cannot begin to enumerate them.

My mom sent two pairs of jeans, and not only were they in the right size, they fit and are comfortable. I can now consign my forlorn, ripped pair to the back of a drawer, for dirty jobs. It is a good thing to be able to wear clothes that are not embarrassing. I can be thankful for that.

My sister called. A gazillion people said "Happy Birthday" on Facebook.

Dancer cooked a delicious Spanish veal stew (we haven't had veal in a decade) and made a French vanilla cinnamon creme for dessert.

Big Guy did the dishes.

And then I realized the most amazing thing had happened. My husband replaced the screws on the toilet lid, so that it doesn't fall off when you sit down.

I feel utterly pampered. I mean, a working toilet seat! A real meal that *I* didn't cook! A clean kitchen!

We listened to the new Sandra Boynton CD after dinner, and laughed and laughed. I could never have been half the parent I am without Philadelphia Chickens and Rhinoceros Tap.  (Really -- you need these songs!)

Life is good today. Part of what makes life good is appreciating today, instead of assuming the goodness of today will extrapolate to the future.

And to add to that, my alma mater has been in the news lately because of a statue, which some of the students find offensive.


I was vastly relieved to learn that the opportunity to dress this poor man in new outfits daily has not gone untapped. I find it highly amusing that the campus police are assigned the task of undressing him to his tighty whiteys every night. It is good to know that students today still have a sense of whimsy.