Sunday Snippets: Whelmed? Or Over-Whelmed?

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

Ever had one of those weeks with too much on your plate?  What if the deadlines . . . ALL of the deadlines . . . were self-imposed?  My writing life feels like that just now, so I took notes from Jon Winokur’s thoughts on angst in W.O.W.: Writer’s on Writing:

Writing is pretty crummy on the nerves. ~ Paul Theroux

It’s a nauseous process. ~ Rebecca West

Let’s face it, writing is hell. ~ William Styron

I’m not happy when I’m writing, but I’m more unhappy when I’m not. ~ Fannie Hurst

Writing is so difficult that I often feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter. ~ Jessamyn West

See you day-after-tomorrow for Tuesday’s Tutor

Sunday’s Snippets: What Are You So Afraid Of?

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

Lately, I’ve been hearing from writer friends that they are stuck, or sick of their novel, or nervous about it, or afraid they’re not good enough, or . . . well, you get the idea.

Hey, folks—we’re not alone!  Take a look at some famous writers, as quoted in

W.O.W.: Writer’s on Writing by Jon Winokur on the subject of angst (emphasis added):

Writing is pretty crummy on the nerves. ~ Paul Theroux

I used to greet each morning spitting blood in the washbasin, having the night before gnashed the inside of my mouth while dreaming I had misplaced a comma in my writing of that day, throwing off the pattern of speech given to the character who lived two hundred years ago.  Years later a dentist asked me if I had a history of mental illness, because the mentally ill often exhibit the advanced molar grindings I did. ~ Thomas Sanchez

I find writing very nervous work.  I’m always in a dither when starting a novel—that’s the worst time.  It’s like going to the dentist, because you do make a kind of appointment with yourself. ~ Kingsley Amis

If I feel it [angst], I feel it now and then, but I don’t try to cherish it nor do I feel especially proud of it.  It comes on me, let’s say, as a headache or toothache might come, and I do my best to discourage it. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Writing is the diametric opposite of having fun.  All of life, as far as I’m concerned, is an excuse not to write.  I just write when fear overtakes me.  It causes paralytic terror.  It’s really scary just getting to the desk—we’re talking now five hours.  My mouth gets dry, my heart beats fast.  I react psychologically the way other people react when the plane loses an engine. ~ Fran Lebowitz

All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique.  All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up. ~ James Baldwin

It’s a nauseous process. ~ Rebecca West

See you day-after-tomorrow on Tuesday’s Tutor!

Monday Moans: This Miserable, Mocking, Malevolent Machine

EASY AS A, B, C . . . from BB

OK—yes, I’m moaning.  Again.  My computer has completely gone nuts.  But like any good home-machine, now that I’m writing about it ON THE COMPUTER, it will no doubt behave itself.

In other instances, it will take me to WordPerfect’s “help” site, if I hit a “b” . . . see?  I’m still here!  Imagine, if you will, how difficult that is with my initials.

After I get out of the “help” site, I start typing again, only to find that it has switched me to all caps.  Another short stop to my writing effort.

If I need an “r,” it won’t print.  If I hit it two or three times I might get a “qer” in place of the single letter “r”—but, hey, I can always just delete the unwanted letters.

When it gets bored with causing me all the above problems, it just freezes.  So I turn it off, wait a few, and turn it back on.  I am rewarded with little lights coming on all over my laptop keyboard.  Yet nothing but blackness on screen.  I wait.  Patiently.  (Or maybe that’s just exhaustion.)  Nothing happens AGAIN.  Or STILL.  Now I decide to turn it off.  It won’t go off.  I try “control-alt-delete.”  Lights stay on.  Screen stays black.  I push the on/off button.  Lights on.  Screen off.  I begin to shake with tension, angst, nerves, etc.  My husband takes over.

He turns the computer off.
First try.
He turns it back on.
It lights up.
Both keyboard and screen.

“There,” he says triumphantly.  “Now try it.”

I tell you, this computer has a “traitor” button hidden somewhere, and I keep hitting it.

See you day-after-tomorrow for “Wednesday’s WIPs”