News and Links

I'm all over the interwebz and thought I would post a few links to indulge my braggadocios tendencies.

First, thank you to Jacqueline Bach for profiling me on her blog series, The Process Project!  The interview was fun and really made me consider just how I go about putting my thoughts together when I write.  I love this series.  Writers always want to know what other writers do and how they create, hence the popularity of books on craft or The Paris Review's "The Art of Fiction" series.  But it is nice to see a project that embraces beginning writers, like myself, along with more established folks to show how we all do what we can to make our dreams happen.  What a fantastic idea!

So to Jacqueline,


Second, a small personal essay I wrote for the online magazine mater mea went live today.  mater mea "is a website that tells the stories of women at the intersection of motherhood and career. Launched in 2012, the site offers a more realistic depiction of black women in the many spaces they occupy: as mothers, daughters, employees and employers, lovers, and friends." 

It is one of a few essays I've written about my twins' difficult birth and the lessons I've learned trying to navigate my feelings around it.  A larger essay will be in Quaint Magazine's next issue, but I am not certain when that issue will be available.  I am currently working on another short essay related to parenting, covering a topic that also deals with my sons' prematurity. 

For some reason other than the obvious reasons, I feel inspired lately when I think about them, and I am writing about them more.  Maybe because it has been two years since their birth, and now I finally feel able to discuss that event without breaking down in self-shattering guilt and panic.  Maybe it is because I am entering a new phase of parenting, the toddler phase (aka, "my kid is an asshole" phase), and I have more to learn and therefore more to write about.  I have a feeling that I will continue to write about my kids for a long time to come, even when they are bigger than me and have moved out of the house.  But, for right now, I am trying to deal with the fact that others will soon know how I went into early labor, and it freaks me out a little.  This first foray in autobiography has been positive though, so I will lean on that for a little while longer.

So for me and my self-promoting, no humility having ass...
 

How to Make My (Pregnancy?) Dreams Come True

Me, dreaming about...

There are several aspects of being pregnant that I was completely unprepared for.  For example:



These...mmm...

1. The fact that your nipples become saucer shaped torpedos that double in size every month;
2.  The parasites in your uterus will suck  everything in your belly out so that you are forced to eat like a ravenous animal every hour on the hour;
3. Something affectionately referred to as "snail tail" (which is way too gross for me to describe here);
4. The fact that you will be so exhausted that keeping your eyes open will become physically demanding and
5. Sleeping (or not sleeping) will become very interesting.

I never really had a problem with sleeping before.  But, now, in between getting up every 20 minutes to pee and my crazy screwball dreams, I think I may get a good two hours of sleep each night.  I had no idea that increasing levels of hCG has the same hallucinogenic effect as taking mushrooms.  I don't even have to be in a deep sleep either.  I could be halfway awake, yet still dreaming about my husband fussing at me because he caught me walking into a bathroom occupied by my ex and several naked women (last night's dream...a very interesting one...).
 
The only good thing is that some of my dreams involve my writing.  Specifically, I have been having this reoccuring dream about starting a new project with a very specific plot.  The funny thing is that I am not dreaming of the plot itself, meaning the action in my dreams do not revolve around these new characters, bur rather me writing about the new characters.  I've had dreams about dialogue, how to begin the story or what to write first in order to develop the plot.  I've even dreamed that I woke up from dreaming about this idea and wrote down my ideas and then went back to sleep!  I mean, can I at least have Leonardo DiCaprio there when I create my own Inception.  Weird...

So, this is my dilema...what do I do with this idea?  I believe it is an awesome idea and I want to write it.  But, what do I do about my current WiP?  Do I put that down and start on this new one?  Do I jot my ideas down somewhere and then return to it when I'm done with my WiP?  Do I work on the both of them at the same time (which seems impossible considering my level of exhaustion these days)?

I need some advice from my fellow artists.  How do you process new ideas while in the midst of a another project?  What do you do to keep track of your ideas and how do you know its time to put pen to paper?