Month: February 2012

  • My Three-Hour Workday

    There seems to be a window of a few hours somewhere between midnight and 3AM each night where the stars align and the medication wears off and I feel somewhat normal. I don’t hurt from the being poked. I don’t feel like I’m going to lose my lunch or like acid is going to eat through my esophagus, like what happened to Frankie in THE HOLE. I’m not dizzy. My head doesn’t hurt too bad. And life is as it should be.

    And so what usually happens is, I lie in bed all night and all day, trying to get comfortable but never really getting there because I’m too hot too cold too sore headachy nauseated you name it I am it, and then everything calms for a bit and I hit the ground running, ’cause kitchens don’t clean themselves, yo.

    Usually what happens is that in the span of these three or so hours, I manage to get done twelve hours worth of work. I steam the kitchen while watching TV and power-Tweeting. I blog and edit and write all at the same time. So what if I just fed the cats Rice Krispies and poured milk on my Blue Buffalo? THEY’RE BOTH GLUTEN-FREE. IT WILL BE OK.

    And then I pass out sometime around four o’clock, exhausted and disheveled, with my jeans around my knees, because that’s as far as I got before I fell asleep.

    I talked to my doctor this morning and was like, “DUDE. SERIOUSLY. Last night I took a Lunesta and tried to drive to Atlantis.”

    And he just shrugged it off, like, “OH YEAH. THAT HAPPENS.”

    That thing where I get halfway to sleep and then wake my mind up because I think I am dying? TOTALLY NORMAL. The part about catching myself not breathing and being unable to move to do anything about it? THE INTENDED RESPONSE. Anxiety, hot flashes, and a migraine? YOU JUST GOT A TEN OUT OF TEN, KIDDO, GOOD JOB.

    On the plus side, I’ve hit that space where you’re sick enough to feel sick but not so sick that you’re too sick to care. It isn’t like I’m confined to a bed, unable to check email or snark J.Lo’s Oscar dress on Twitter. There are days I just cannot sit in this house any longer, and so I go out to get groceries or check my post office box or pay bills, and by the time I get there, I’m like, holy shit this was a bad idea And then I have to creep home at 25 miles an hour because the road. won’t. stop. moving.

    I guess what I’m saying is, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, even if it is warbly. And that’s more than I could say a month ago.

    So…progress.

  • Six Sentence Sunday: Wonder Wiener

    From Wonder Wiener: Confessions of a Teenage Hot Dog:

    “Hilda! Over here!” Benny tried to wave her over, but the hot dog suit wasn’t having it. Instead, she pulled off her mustard squiggle and began twirling it lasso-style around her head. The squiggle caught the awning above the entrance to the Dog House, and one of the rusted slats fell off and bopped Benny on the head.

    “Fucking shitbomb,” Benny said.

    Click here to find out more about Six Sentence Sunday!

  • Q&A: Why aren’t you published yet?

    Anonymous asked:

    Forgive me for asking (and if you don’t want to answer, that’s cool) but…..why aren’t you published yet?

    And a follow-up from Anonymous, Jr.:

    After fifteen years of noes, do you ever feel like it’s NEVER going to happen?

    I’ve been sitting on these questions for a while because I didn’t really know how to answer them. But they are great questions, the kinds of questions we all want to ask at one point or another, I think, but are afraid to because what if the answers are depressing? What if the answers are not what we want to hear? What if they show us a truth we can’t handle?

    And so we go to other people, people maybe we don’t even know, and we ask them if they ever felt what we felt, because if they felt it, too, then maybe everything will be OK. Maybe this doubt thing is normal. Maybe it doesn’t mean I’m doing everything wrong, that I’m not really supposed to be a writer, that I didn’t miss my calling as an occupational therapist like my mom keeps saying.

    So here’s my answer:

    Of course I have doubts. I have doubts all the time. Doubts about the big picture (What if I never sell a book? What if I sell a book and it bombs? What if I sell a book, it does OK, and then the next one tanks? What if I sell one book and can’t sell another?) and the not-so-big picture (What if my voice is abrasive? What if my characters are unlikable? What if this plot twist I love is cliche and I don’t know it?) and the why-are-you-even-worrying-about-that-shit picture (What if that word doesn’t mean what I think it means?).

    Doubt happens. Book deals, a gazillion social media followers, none of that eradicates doubt. It may hide it for a while or take the sting off of it, or whatever. But it doesn’t get rid of it. Ever.

    So I guess the real question you’re asking is, How do you keep going when doubt tells you it’s never going to happen?

    And the answer is: you just do.

    You end one book, and you start another one. One foot in front of the other. Just like that.

    I don’t have any one-size-fits-all answers for why I’m not published. Each book has its own answer, sometimes more than one. In the early days, it was because I wasn’t good enough. The writing wasn’t up to par. The ideas weren’t idea-y enough. Badness all around. (Actually, that’s not just relegated to the early days–I’ve written some stinkers in the past year or two.) Other books were too similar or too different or the wrong genre. I’ve written young adult novels that everyone thought sounded too old, and adult novels everyone thought sounded too young. And some books aren’t published because, well, I didn’t try to publish them, so who knows how they would have turned out.

    But I’d say in the majority of cases, the real reason was because doubt got in the way. And when it did, I gave up.

    That book I didn’t think I could write? I didn’t write it. That agent who in no way would want my book? I didn’t query him. That editor who begged on her blog for a book exactly like mine? I wrote off as just saying that to make people feel better.

    I’m almost ashamed to admit it. But there you go.

    I was Doubt’s bitch for so long, guys. Too long. It wasn’t until I hit a rough patch in the early stages of writing Cate & Chuck–which, by the way, will not be published because it’s one of the stinky books–that I said to myself, “OK, so you know what happens if you quit. Wonder what will happen if you keep going…”

    I’d love to be all cheerleader-y and tell you that if you just! keep! going! rah! rah! rah! things will work out and you’ll be published and you’ll never ever feel doubt again.

    Sadly, that’s not how it works. Scary thought time, but the odds are against you ever getting published. And for those who do get published, the odds are something like ten-to-one against seeing a second book in print. Reality is a harsh motherfucker.

    But I don’t keep going just to capture some fickle dream of being published or whatever. I keep going because I want to see what happens if I don’t stop.

    And if in fifteen years from now, I’m still answering this question, well, shit happens, I guess. I’m sure it’ll have been one helluva ride.

  • Raw

    So there’s this thing that happens sometimes when my body chemistry changes and the medications I had been taking no longer work the way they should. I get tired. I get excited. I get antsy. I get lethargic. I get all of these and then some all at the same time, and it’s just a big mess.

    In a lot of ways I feel like this is something I need to talk about, because not talking about it has become just one more thing that I have to keep inside, and sometimes there is so much stuff in there it’s a relief just to let something–like this thing–out. And in a lot of ways I feel like this is something that I should never talk about, because it scares people–friends, family, significant others, prospective employers, the FAA. I’ve been fired for being bipolar. I’ve been asked to leave churches and schools because they were uncomfortable with how I might react to things.

    Even now, as I type this, I’m wondering if it’s career suicide. If now or in the future an agent or editor will see this and think, “I cannot work with someone who’s unstable, someone who’s crazy.”

    Because that’s what I’ve heard all my life: that I’m unstable, that I’m crazy.

    When in fact this particular disorder has little to do with being crazy and everything to do with how my brain receives things like melatonin and seratonin and adrenaline and norepinephrine.

    You know that feeling you get when you’re nervous or scared or excited? That “fight or flight” feeling that rises in your gut and makes your heart beat a little bit faster?

    That’s what I’m talking about.

    Because when things go pear-shaped, what happens is I stop sleeping. And the longer I go without sleeping, or without sleeping well, the more my body rebels. I get nervous all the time. Little things become big, insurmountable, life-ending things. My immune system goes to shit and I get physically ill. And I feel like nothing ever stops. Like I’m thinking, moving, doing all the time.

    Not stabbing someone or hearing voices or driving a car full of puppies off a bridge.

    Just…jitters.

    I feel jittery all the time.

    The medications–like Abilify, a mood stabilizer, and Topamax, an anti-convulsant–dull this enough to where it’s not an all-consuming, coming-apart-at-the seams kind of thing. Like tapping a light when it’s buzzing.

    But sometimes things change, and tapping the light doesn’t work like it used to. And when that happens, you have to find other ways to get the buzzing to stop.

    Recently I read a book in which a teenage girl goes off her meds and feels numb. And I’m not saying that can never happen. I’ve been on enough medications over the years to know that there’s telling what might happen in that situation. You could come up to me and say, “I stopped taking Prozac cold turkey and saw through a blue haze for three weeks after!”

    And I’d believe you. Because that’s what happened to me.

    But numb? Numb is the least of it. Numb is a blessing compared to what it feels like to titrate off one medication and onto another, only to have that medication not work, and have to titrate off it and onto something else.

    The last time I went through the this, the transition took nine months and six medications. I had earaches and vertigo and tinnitus (a ringing in my ears) for the majority of that time. I lost chunks of hair, my skin dried out, I gained a lot of weight, lost a lot of weight. I forgot what it felt like to not have a headache.

    I remember going to my doctor and crying for over an hour, not saying anything, just crying, because I would rather go back to what I had been taking and be sad–just sad–than feel like crap all over.

    Eventually, though, we did get everything worked out. I started sleeping again. I started feeling normal again. And all the other stuff faded away.

    I know this is going to turn out like that. That somewhere down the line I will look back at these past five or so months and say, “I went through that and it was hard but everything turned out OK and I am fine now.”

    But being in the moment, feeling raw like this…it is hard. And I’m so tired of being tired. I wish the world would just stop moving sometimes so I could catch my breath.

    But it doesn’t. That’s not how it works.

    So in the meantime, I have to stop. Not, like, literally, in the death sense or anything, but in the forcing myself to stop and get well, to let some things go (for now) and trust they’ll be waiting on me when I’m strong again.

    And these aren’t necessarily writing-related things. Some of these things are people whom I’ve been taking care of, who maybe need to take care of themselves for a while. Some of these things are relationships that have grown toxic or abusive that need to end, period.

    Some of these things are dreams that need to remain dreams for the time being.

    I’m sorry if I’m letting you down. I’m letting me down, kind of, too. But I know I’m no good to anyone like this, afraid of my own shadow, freaking out over the tiniest things, things that aren’t even worth a second glance, let alone an all-night worrython.

    But things will sooner or later go back to normal.

    They always do.

    Eventually.

  • Liz Breaks Down

    Every now and then the shit hits the fan in such a way that I’m left alone in the PetSmart parking lot, sobbing into a slightly used McDonald’s napkin, wishing the earth would crack open and swallow me up, because somehow everything has gone to shit.

    Everything. Shit. All of it.

    I say this, and people are like, “OMG WHAT IS WRONG?”

    And I don’t know what to tell them. EVERYTHING is wrong. NOTHING is wrong. I am wrong.

    There’s this thing that happens when so much of who you are is wrapped up in any one thing. If something goes wrong, if you get get sad or despondent for no apparent reason, they automatically assume the reason why is buried somewhere in that part of you.

    Which brings me to Sunday night. PetSmart. Parking lot. Salty McDonald’s napkin. And a friend on my cell telling me to calm down, calm down, there will be other books.

    “WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE WILL BE OTHER BOOKS?”

    “Just that…Not everyone…Maybe you should focus on other things right now.”

    “OH MY GOD YOU THINK MY BOOK SUCKS!”

    “What? No. Of course not. But if you’re upset about it–“

    “I’M UPSET BECAUSE I RAN OUT OF CAT FOOD AND PETSMART IS CLOSED AND THEY DON’T SELL IT ANYWHERE ELSE AND IT’S RAINING AND MY HAIR IS STUPID AND I GOT THE WRONG CLEMENTINES AT WAAAAALLLLL-MAAAAAAARRRRRRT…”

    Truth is, now more than ever I’m grateful for writing and reading, and even my new Kindle, even though it took three hours to convert all my Nook books over to Kindle format. Every day is a struggle to keep my head above water, to keep from melting down or crippling with fear, and every minute I get to check out of this reality and find sanctuary in another truly is a blessing.

  • Underwater

    Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I head to the gym when it’s slow and float in the pool. I stare at the drop ceiling and think about nothing, just listen to the muffled sounds of water and the blood rushing around in my head. It’s a place where I don’t have to do anything: pay bills, write books, exercise, clean the kitchen. All I have to do is stay afloat.

  • Instincts

    Lately I’ve been contemplating this post on instincts by Julie Cohen–who, incidentally, used to beg me for Doogie Howser sex stories years ago, long before Neil Patrick Harris was the King of Hotness that he is today. I mention this because I want you to see what she means by instincts and how they can be right-on even when at first it seems like they’re way off the mark. If I had listened to Julie back then, I could have cornered the market on NPH porn by now. Instead, all I have to show for myself is an incontinent cat named Barney Stinson.

    HERE ENDETH THE LESSON.

    I’ve been paying more attention that usual documenting how I spend my time. It seems as though the more time I have to write, the less time I actually spend writing. Like I’ll spend two hours sitting in front of a Word document rewriting the same paragraph I just spent the past week rewriting. If you’ve ever started researching a book but never started writing it, you know exactly how fruitless and empty this particular hamster wheel of doom really is.

    I don’t really know why I do this. Dawdle, I mean. Worry about perfecting a sentence when I don’t even know of the freaking scene is going to stay in the book at the end of the day. But I do it, even though I know I shouldn’t, even though I know it’s using up precious writing time.

    Because as it turns out, 99% of the scenes I use (and by use I don’t mean they come out perfect; I mean they had something I could work with in editing) were the bullshit scenes. The crap scenes. The scenes I wrote the first fifteen minutes of my writing time, when I’m just clearing my throat, so to speak.

    The scenes that come out on pure instinct.

    I think a lot of time, we as writers give away our power. We reach success and say it’s luck and perseverance, not talent and practice. We get something right, and we say we don’t know how it happened, when really, we know exactly how it happened. We know because we were there. We know because we thought about it and thought about it and thought about it until we had something to work with. And then we worked it until it as pliable and started to take shape.

    Maybe the shape was there all along. Maybe it was there and we just found it.

    But if that’s the case, if it’s as easy as, “Oops! I just tripped over an idea! Good thing I saw it else I might’ve broken my neck!” then why doesn’t every person who has an idea do something with it?

    Talent exists. It exists in writing the same way it exists in everything else.