Deborah Kalan says, "Just do it"

I’m so pleased to have Deborah Kalan back here at Choices. Since we met in a Pilates class about a year and a half ago, our friendship has blossomed. We get together socially with our husbands, and we always have our writing projects to talk about.  Yet, sometimes life events seem to interfere with our writing. Deborah tells how the obstacles play havoc on her determination to keep sitting in her chair in front of her computer. They are wise words indeed.

How to Begin Your Daily Writing

(when you just don’t think you can)

by Deborah Kalan

There are three obstacles that often interfere with my writing. 

    1. Getting started

    2. Going back to a previously written piece

    3. Staying focused 

Getting Started

Some days I’ll flip open my computer and what do I see in front of me? No, not a blank page. That would be easy. What I see is my Yahoo page with a multitude of hooking headlines. “Sex Prequel Casts New Samantha,” “Coolest Vending Machine Ever,”  “Dogs See in Color,” and other distracting previews. Then, as long as I’m there, I click on my inbox to see if anyone is sending me some oh-so- important news or information that can’t wait another second to be read. After taking 15 or 20 minutes to scan all of the minutia and delete 98% of it, I quickly and guiltily log onto my Facebook page to ogle over the mostly unimportant self-serving posts of my seventy some odd ‘friends’. And still I haven’t written one single word.

Getting Back To Previously Written Pieces

When I am on a writing roll, I often finish a rough draft, or even 2nd or 3rd run through of a satisfying piece of writing. I’ll slap on a cursory title, save it to my documents and then I . . . forget about it. It could be a genius essay. It might be a poem that has a chance for a Pulitzer.  But I put it somewhere and forget where it is or even that I’ve written it at all. I could blame this on “old age,” but it’s honestly a matter of disorganization. Should I make a hard copy and file it in a colorful file folder marked “to be revisited?” Should I leave it on my desktop where I will see it the next time I open my computer? 

I know I have many pieces saved and filed and forgotten. If I could find a way to organize the work that I have completed, I would find some well written buried treasures.

Staying Focused

I now decide to get down to business and open a blank page to start writing. If I’m not in the middle of a piece I have been working on, I often go to one of my writing sights that I subscribe to for inspiration. Maybe I’ll go to Robert Lee Brewer’s Poetics Asides Blog with the intention of finding a poetry prompt. Instead I start to read about an old Welsh poetic form called a gwawdodyn, or a more commonly known one called a sestina.  I learn the formula and read some examples of the forms. I make a mental note to try these when I get some extra time. 

Then I remember that I the online newsletter from “We Wanted to Be Writers” arrived this morning. I open it and get dizzy with the distraction of a dozen bright blue highlighted links. There are book reviews and lists of books related to the review. There are interviews and blog posts. There’s a calendar of events and words of advise. There’s gossip and anecdotes. I click link upon link and find myself falling down Alice’s hole to the center of the earth where it’s almost impossible to climb back out. Thirty minutes later I’ve become a well informed writer on a wide range of topics but I have yet to begin my daily writing.

I need to call upon my writing genie. You know, the one who pops out of my laptop to encourage me to stay focused, help me organize my work, and stop reading about writing and start writing. 

Like any goal in life that you want to perfect, you need to show up, go through the motions, and keep at it. Then repeat the process until it becomes your habit and you get better at it. 

Just do it!

Deborah's bio

Deborah has been writing about real life since she was in the fifth grade and received a diary with lock and key for her 10th birthday. Even at that young age she found that people in ordinary situations made for intriguing writing. Deborah also writes poetry and fiction and finds the short short story to be one of her favorite genres.

She has been married for 42 years, consecutively, and has two married children and two amazing grandchildren. She likes to describe her dual California residences as living “bi-coastal."  One home is near the coast of Manhattan Beach and the other is near the “coast” of Calabasas Lake.

The April Poem A Day Challenge is back

I'm participating in Robert Lee Brewer's* month-long Poem A Day Challenge, as I've done each November and April for the last several years.

At this point my poems are just drafts, but it's fun just to get something down that I can tinker with once the challenge is over. 

Robert's prompts are always interesting. Here's a few poems I've written so far, following the days' prompts.

3. Write a tentative poem. The poem could be about a tentative date, a tentative person, a tentative situation. The narrator could be tentative. The subject could be tentative.

She once said,

I’ll pencil you in.

I bristled.

In fact, I erased her

from my calendar

and datebook entirely.

I’ve also erased her

from my mind.

4. Take the phrase “Hold That (Blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and write the poem. Possible titles include “Hold That Thought,” “Hold That Space,” “Hold That Poem,” or whatever else holds your attention.

Hold That and That and That

It’s always something when I order a meal.

Hold the cheese, the milk, the bacon, the bread.

The list is endless: red meat, wheat, gluten.

I wonder if a time will come

when I’ll be holding so much

that everything I eat

will taste like cardboard.

5. Write a plus poem. Plus can mean a lot of things, and even the act of addition could equate to subtraction.

Today’s list:

Write a poem

Plus

Write a journal entry

Plus

Write a blog post

Plus

Work on novel

Plus

(and this is the most important part)

Monitor the Putting a Face onSuicide page.

All other work stops for that.

* Robert is: Senior Content Editor for Writer's Digest writing community, poet, and father.

Back to writing work

What a relief to not have to drive an hour to Anaheim and back anymore. I finished my consulting job - which I loved - but I'm very happy not to have to do that stressful drive anymore. 

So instead, I'm using my time to catch up on my writing work.

The first order of business is gathering my November 2012 challenge poems into a chapbook. Robert Lee Brewer's instructions are to submit no more than twenty by January 7 - this coming Monday.  I went through them this afternoon and picked out fifteen. I have a little editing left to do, and then I plan to get the document off tomorrow. After that I'm on to the next item on my list. 

It gives me great joy (there's my word Joy that I picked for 2013) to tick items off my to-do list.

Here's a preview of a couple of poems I'm submitting.

This prompt was to write about something just beneath my skin.

Just Beneath My Skin

Unfortunately

those miracle creams

that are supposed to

get rid of age spots

fine lines, deep wrinkles

don’t work

No matter how much I slather on

they just linger there

like a film on my face,

neck and décolletage.

They never get to where they belong

just beneath my skin

This prompt was to write a poem about a wheel (my suggestion) - any use of the word wheel.

Photo by Madeline

The London Eye

Every 30 seconds a capsule door opens

to let passengers in or out.

Yet the giant Ferris wheel

doesn’t stop so that

slowly, carefully

we see the London landscape

from every angle.

As we gaze through the glass oval

capsule walls

we also see into the capsule below

and watch a couple

in full wedding regalia

get married.

The only thing we miss -

enjoying a sip

of their celebratory champagne

with their thirty guests.