* Procrastination/Distraction (aka, Netflix)
* Impatience (leads to inefficient use of time and general crazy head)
* Boredom (you’re bored with your book? well fix it. you’re boring yourself.)
* Ignoring the blessings of the muse (yes there is a lot of work to do and it looks ugly right now, but there might be some very lovely things about this book if you would just sit down and WRITE IT already.)
* Envy (yes, I know, it’s in the Big Seven but I think it belongs here, too. We do harm to ourselves as writers when we compare our in-progress work to the finished, polished, published works of other writers. It’s not fair to us or our works in progress.)
* Avoidance (Just sit down, just sit down in the chair and write. Just do it. Pretty please. No–no more internet research! No more note-taking or outlining! No!)
* Giving up

They are all thematically linked, of course. I was thinking of procrastination lately (most likely while procrastinating). I came across a meditation CD that would supposedly cure a person of this sin. But it begs the question – how would I not procrastinate from actually listening to the CD? It’s a conundrum.

I think I’ve been suffering most keenly from…wait, from ALL OF THESE. SIMULTANEOUSLY. The one that I realized recently was Avoidance, which is vaguely different from Procrastination. For me, Procrastination is “okay, time to write. Oh, but I’m hungry, why don’t I have a snack first. And while I have my snack, I’ll watch Angel on Netflix. And when I’m done with that, I’ll get another snack and browse Netflix for random movies.”

While procrastination is obviously bad, avoidance can be just as insidious – though it is dressed up in the best intentions. For example, I have a strong urge to scour library shelves and online catalogs in search for books to read to “research” my book. This results in a stockpile of books that I intended to read for research – which I have yet to do. I haven’t had time, I’m too busy trolling the internet for other books I must read! If I were actually reading these books, that would be called research, fair enough. But the endless searching is Avoidance – maybe even Resistance to sitting down and getting any work done? It creates real problems – it takes time away from writing, it adds these to-read books to my already-overwhelming to do list, AND – most dangerous of all – I’m convincing myself that I CAN’T write this book right now. Apparently I just don’t have the correct words or information or something or other in me, and I need to spend time SEARCHING for it before I start writing. I could search forever. I could find the most perfect research books. But even if I were to read these illuminating volumes, that still leaves the writing of my book. Which I have been avoiding.

So what am I going to do about this? I’ll report my plan of attack in my next post.

I am back at work but still reading and researching and letting ideas germinate. Thinking a lot about how best to balance work and writing and life in general. If anyone has any thoughts on this, please let me know. I need to keep the writing going even during a normal work week.

So I took a little break. Did the aforementioned snacking and reading and whatnot. Then I went back to it and yes, it has some problems, some still unanswered questions. But it isn’t all bad, I don’t think. Not all of it. There’s something here I can work with.

I could continue down the path of “Writing is hard! This is stupid! It’s not good enough I hate it I quit!” That path is wide open and all too easy to take (along with drowning in Netflix and ice cream and my own misery). But perhaps for now I will choose optimism. You can choose these things, you know. The book is far from perfect, far from done. Far from even figured out yet. I really don’t know what it will be. But I’m ready to stick around for a while and find out.

In other news, I visited the MFA yesterday. I’m now a huge fan of Odilon Redon and Randolphe Bresdin – very beautiful black and white fantastical etchings, a few of Redon’s are dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe (that’s the sound of worlds colliding). Above is The Reader, Redon’s portrait of his teacher, Bresdin. So peaceful, so thoughtful…It’s a relatively small exhibit of their work (along with a million other things that I loved there which I will talk more of later) but it’s only there for a few more days so if you are in the neighborhood I highly recommend it.

Tonight, I have a date with some kale, and mushrooms, and red peppers. I am terrifically excited.

I have a big revision ahead of me, is the thing. Staring me in my scared little face. I don’t really know what I can salvage from this draft, and I feel so thwarted; it feels so much like starting over. And then there are those other ideas, just waiting for some attention…perhaps I should attend to them?

But I can’t. I won’t. I made a commitment to focus on one project. Now is not the time for weakness or doubt or a wandering creative eye. Am I a woman or am I a mouse?

Yes, the holidays are here, and this year seems particularly jolly (maybe I am jolly because I’m not yet buried in snow…I suppose we’ll find out come January). Anyhow, I’m trying to drink in the spirit of the season while still thinking about my book, in the hopes of keeping that process going. I’ve been trying out different ideas that have fallen flat – maybe that means I’m getting closer to the good stuff? Here’s hoping. I may as well be optimistic. And drink egg nog.

While I had the pleasure of moderating the steampunk author panel at this year’s Boston Book Festival, I am by no means an expert on All Things Steam.  But I did valiantly attempt to cram as much into my brain as I could – here are the highlights of my steampunk studies.

Coleridge: While Samuel Taylor Coleridge had already dropped dead at the start of the Victorian era, his kooky utopian ideals live on in steampunk literature.  I had never heard of his plan to form a commune on the banks of the Susquehanna River, but boy I am glad I did.  Pantisocracy gets an honorable mention in The Somnabulist by Jonathan Barnes and The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

H.G. Wells: Oh, Herbert George…like Coleridge, also he envisioned a utopia — everyone would be so content as to render alcoholism obsolete.  Hmm…  Wells spent the first part of his life doing what everyone and his mother told him but busted out of an unhappy marriage and crap job and thereafter championed birth control and free love.  He walked the walk, people.  He also pursued knowledge all his life, writing over 100 works: essays! novels! scientific articles!

Copyright: Kate Beaton, Hark, a Vagrant

I have said it before and I will say it again: bring back airship travel!  No, no, not the explosive hydrogen kind — the cuddly, gentle helium-powered model (unless it’s the Darwinian mashup from Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan).  Sure, it would take a week to get to California, but it would be a civilized week with teatime, scenic vistas and no drop in cabin pressure.

So there you have it: my freewheeling take on the steampunk genre.  I’m not going to get into hard and fast definitions here: if it feels right, by God, Victoria, and the late, great British Empire, go for it.  You can also check out Gail Carriger’s blog, because that woman enjoys both research and fabulous outfits. Anything I didn’t say about clothes here, you can see with your own two pretty eyes over there.

Maya Escobar
Cambridge Public Library
cplteenlounge.blogspot.com

That said, back to my graphic novel obsession! I just read HEXED by Michael Alan Nelson (Author), Cris Peter (Illustrator) and Emma Rios (Illustrator). Lucifer is a tough girl with a dark past; a thief of dangerous, magical objects. I’m looking forward to reading more of this – perhaps it will distract me as I wait for the first volume of Buffy: Season 9.