Agnes Needs a Cigarette (or 20)

As Madeleine mentioned, this has been a busy time. I remember hearing a story on the radio about a survey of some of the most stressful events in life: death of a loved one, marriage/divorce, having a child, but two of the top ones were: moving and looking for a job/graduating with an expensive degree and no intention of getting, as one graduation card so strangely put it, "a satisfying job with a good salary." Who says something like that to a recent MFA graduate? Oh, yeah, my grandparents from Arizona...

SO, as may come as a surprise to no one, I have been smoking. As everything wraps up and people are packing and moving out of the studio building things get stranger and stranger. I want to be gone, but I also don't like feeling pushed out. Then there was the graduation ceremony itself--the single worst graduation ceremony I have yet encountered. (Though perhaps one day I may be lucky enough to be a faculty member of a worse one--fingers crossed!!!)
Then there is the issue of grad school having put a few pounds on Agnes' once-sylphlike hips. Agnes feeling a little less Agnes than usual. Or a little more, depending on how you look at it.
The good news is that I am rapidly homeward bound. I have a few projects for the apartment and am looking forward to being a predominantly bike-commuter. We joined a CSA this summer so will have lots of fresh vegetables. The apartment lawsuit craziness continues to be a psychological drain, but will be something of a financial boon (for right now, anyhow) in that we aren't obligated by the court to save our rent.

And I am really, really serious about quitting when I am back in the city. Change is good, yes? Yes.

Madeleine Gets Nothing Done

I planned on writing today. I didn't. Not sure why.

Possible reasons: working extra hours at my office the past few weeks; Agnes's graduation (last weekend) and move (this weekend); paralyzing lawsuit developments; I want to write something else.

The lawsuit developments, incidentally, aren't so bad, but they are distracting and make me lose focus. Or I allow them to make me lose focus.

Story #2 is a tough one. This sounds familiar, right, readers? But it IS tough, and it keeps getting longer and longer.

I hate all this complaining! I just have to do it. And I am enjoying it when I write it. I should be happy about that--I am happy about that.

I am not happy about this post, however. I should retitle this post: Madeleine Gets Nothing Done Then Writes This Lame Post.

I will say that the comment on my last post was very inspiring. Thank you. I will do better next time. And I am trying to get Agnes to post again.

Time Passes Fast, Thinks Madeleine

Yes, readers, I am back finally.

I have been meaning to..., I have been wanting to..., etc.

I am still on Story #2, still writing my quick loose first draft. And I am enjoying it, even though I wish I had finished it already.

When I wrote in my old way--slowly, deliberately--I ended up spending so much time on the beginning of the story, making it as perfect as can be, and then spending relatively little time on the end of the story. That is probably why I am always disappointed by the endings of my stories--but I love the beginnings! The beginnings are great!

With my new process, I am falling into the same old pattern--that is to say, even though I am writing quickly, I am still spending a lot of time on the beginning of the story, not writing the same paragraph, the same sentences, over and over again, but writing many many paragraphs at the beginning of the story, and now rushing to the end.

More on this later. Or if any readers wish to comment, please do.

But here's some hopeful news: I am beginning to feel, and feel it every day--maybe I should say "believe" instead of "feel"--that I will be able to finish these stories, that I could write a novel, that, really, I can do it. I've felt this at various times in my life when I'm working, but now I feel it every day. A consistent feeling. Maybe I shouldn't have written about it; maybe now I won't feel it tomorrow.

Actually, I think I will.

agnès b. Fucked Up

As Madeleine and our one or perhaps two readers have noticed, I have been missing from this blog for a very long time. As is obvious, although the reasons I told myself were many, this was because I didn't think it was important enough. But today I am feeling differently.

Shall we recap? Agnes' role on this blog was the role of the "smoke quitter", though she proved rather better at quitting that. The winter was spent in a nicotine-infused fog right through to the beginning of March, the 8th to be exact, when she quit again, this time "for real." She did a perfect job for a month, and then, well, she fucked up again. So that's where we are now.

I am just about finished with school--I have my last class this afternoon, on Friday morning I have a exit interview/critique, and Saturday is Open Studios. After that, everything is indeterminate. In a way this is liberating, but it's also massively anxiety-provoking--freedom is terrifying. I was feeling truly rotten last week but for some reason today I feel great. I shouldn't, as I was drinking alone last night, but I do. A big part of my problem is the way that I am always thinking about the future. A cherished reader reminded me of the old saw about "one day at a time," and aesthetically displeasing as it is, I am slowly coming to the realization that it is in fact sort of true, and while it is certainly okay to look forward to things, it doesn't help to get there by postponing living. It also doesn't help to reify self-loathing with self-destructive behavior. Which I think very much plays a role in the whole smoking thing. I have mentioned before how much more difficult it is just to live without smoking because I feel like I don't have a way of checking out of life. But I'm not sure that this "checking out" is a good thing as it usually manifests itself in strange, time-consuming, compulsive behaviors like watching entire seasons of Black Adder in one sitting to avoid the fact that I haven't been able to make any (much) new work for two months. But is the inability to make work because of the checking out? Fallow periods are important for most artists, I think, and two months is not technically that long, but God do they suck. Especially when one is at the tail end of a graduate program that costs *ahem* more than one can afford and one feels as though one is wasting opportunities. Wasting opportunities was kind of a mortal sin in my family, along with waste of any kind, especially money. So you'd think that I would be more conscientious of the fact that cigarettes cost $8-$8.50/pack here.

ANYHOW, I am going to be back here in a serious way. I need The Mildred's help and I need Madeleine's help and I need your help, dear readers. I hate asking for help. But here is my plea! And I promise to be more entertaining and less incoherent in future. I am rusty.

Madeleine Feels the Heat, or Madeleine Worries

I am still working on my quick, loose, first draft of Story #2, and I have gotten to a certain point, but now I am starting to think about the end, think about how the different elements in the story will come together, how I will make it to the end.  (Yes, I mentioned the end twice in that sentence, because, yes, I am worried about the end.)

This is the anticipation, the anxiety, I was hoping to avoid by doing the quick, loose, first draft.

I have to focus on what I am writing now, where I am in the story now, and keep moving forward, and write the end when I get to the end.

("Moving forward" makes me think of my workplace.  That's how they talk there.)

Another observation: every story I write becomes the hardest story I ever wrote.  So I thought Story #1 was the hardest story I ever wrote and ever would write when I was writing it, but now that I am writing Story #2, it is BY FAR the hardest story I have ever written and will ever write.

One more thought: a psychic once told me that I was working on a story, or I would work on a story that should actually be split into two stories.  Perhaps Story #2 is that story.

Madeleine Learns Something (Again)

What I've learned this week, reader(s), is that I can't take breaks from my writing.  Except for maybe one day, like I said in my last post.  But if the break from writing stretches into two days, it will inevitably stretch into three days, and then I start feeling guilty--but don't start writing.

This rule might be especially important in my new process, i.e., when I am writing a quick, loose first draft of a story, as I am doing now with Story #2.

I took a break last Sunday--I was tired! I was not in the mood! I wanted to see a movie and hang out!--and that was a mistake.  I didn't write all week and my schedule got thrown off.  I wanted to have the loose, first draft finished by the end of April.  It's May 2nd, and guess what? It's not finished.

I'm sure I made this same discovery in the past, maybe even countless times in the past--and I might have even written about it on the Mildred (I am not going to search the blog, readers, but one of you, if there are any of you, can do it and tell me what you find)--but this time it will stick!  (I don't like the use of that word "stick."  But I will not correct it!)

That said, I wrote yesterday, and I'm still all fired up with my loose first draft!  In fact, I am going to go work on it now, reader(s)!

Later: Actually, I just remembered what happened last Sunday.  I remembered it when I was rereading this posted post to make sure there were no egregious spelling errors.  Last Sunday, I was visiting Agnes, and I went to the place where I like to write when I am visiting Agnes, and it was closed!  I then tried to find another place, some other cafe, but they were all crowded and I settled on going to Agnes's studio to write.  This is never good for either of us, but it's especially not good for me, because I am easily distracted.  Agnes still got a lot done, as I recall, so this was not Agnes's fault AT ALL.  

Speaking of Agnes, I saw her log onto the Mildred earlier this morning.  I thought, "Agnes is going to post on the Mildred?!?"  That's what made me think that i should post on the Mildred. But she didn't post!  What happened, Agnes?  We all want to know.