Renee is Writing

I am just begging for someone to ground me, send me to my room and put me in time out. "Time out" as a behavioral intervention for preschoolers is frowned upon and in many cases prohibited. But I believe for adults--mothers, teachers, therapists, and especially artists and writers--it should be implemented frequently and for long periods of time. The formula for "time out" is one minute for each year of the child's life. For me that would be 62 minutes of glorious peace, quiet and creative time. I prescribe it for myself about three times a day so that morning, noon and night I can hide away and get something created. Unfortunately I cannot self medicate so I am doomed to wait patiently until some physician discovers that this is the best treatment and it has only healthy and positive side effects. In time out I could read quietly, absorbing poems like mist on my skin instead of gobbling them up without a chance to fully appreciate the rhythm and the message. ...

Progress in writing is like the weather, especially if, like me, you write in several genres. Sometimes there are sunny skies and the writing goes well, I am focused on a project and moving along at a good flow. For instance, Saturday was one of those days. I typed out several pages in my novel and stashed them in  a binder to await revision. Then I wrote one and a half new chapters in longhand in my ever present spiral notebook. I also made a few plot notes and created a new character. It was writing bliss. Then Sunday came, and not so good. The weather itself was warm and sunny--a glorious day for winter in the northeast. The writing weather was a disaster. I did a lot of reading, got some errands accomplished and enjoyed the warm sun, but the only writing I achieved were my three morning pages--which I didn't write until 5:00 in the evening. Not feeling very productive I ended the weekend grateful for what I got done on Saturday. Sunday night I made a commitment to make...

I discovered a writing secret on my recent trip to LA. In the 757 aircraft the pressure equalizes, the lights dim, and the white noise of the engines is so loud it feels like it's coming from deep inside my own body. I've heard the safety instructions, eaten my take on board lunch, since sandwiches on the plane are too costly, and I've drunk enough water to keep me from getting a dehydration headache. I have also read several chapters in the novel I brought along on vacation and listened to Adele's album on my i-pod. There are several hours left of this cross country flight. I take out the spiral notebook I am using to write first draft chapters of my novel and here is where the secret reveals itself. Stuck in the plane at 35,000 feet about mountains and streams, nestled into the narrow, even for me, seat of the plane, strapped to my seat with few distractions, the story comes to me like a film on a 3-D screen. My characters' voices speak in my head, the movements...