writing writing writing

NaNoWriMo marches on. Today my word count should be 13336. It is not. It's 8944.

So I've been reading advertisements from Burt Goldman and his Quantum Jump stuff. I imagine he doesn't teach anything I don't know as far as technique goes--visualization, relaxation, etc., but the idea in general is neat. He posits that there are an infinite number of universes in which we exist, so it's a simple matter of finding the you that's doing what you want to do in their universe and talk to them.

Now, I think that's just hogwash. If I could really travel to an alternate universe and talk to myself as, say, a successful novelist, who's to say that the me in the alternate universe would know what's going on and be expecting me? So if alternate universes do exist and there's a J.K. Rowling version of me in one, I doubt if she'd be waiting around to give me advice.

However, I do think it's a good idea to ask yourself what to do to do what you want to do. I read an interesting article last night about biocentrism, and now I want to read the book. It's in queue for this month's audible.com download. The concept is that time is an illusion we create to explain change, and that when we die, we just are, time-free. This fits in nicely with Abraham's notion that we are still our higher selves while we're in our bodies. Note: this is not a new age book, but a physics and biology book, and some of the concepts are mind-stretching in a good way. So--could I communicate with timeless Faithy? Who knows. It will be fun to learn about; fun to try. Maybe I'll try it with a ouija board.

Some of my favorite stories about hypnosis (really, this isn't a tangent) are stories from the early days of neurolinguistic programming, and from Erickson's days of experimental hypnotherapy. One claim, from the NLP people, was of an experiment in which they convinced the hypnotized person that they were an accomplished violinist. During the trance, they played as well as Itzak Perlman or the like. I have no idea whether they could play at all prior to the session; it is romantic to think that it was their first encounter with a violin, but I suspect they had at least a little skill beforehand. I would love to hook up with someone who's had that sort of experience and try it myself. My favorite story about Erickson is of inducing a trance in a man whom Erickson had no idea how to proceed with his therapy. He then asked the man how to best proceed, and then the patient spelled out for him, step-by-step, exactly how best to help him.

I have tried self-hypnosis for these sorts of things, with mediocre results at best. It's partially my desire for a short cut to where I want to be--just plug in the software, Matrix-style, and, boom! I'm a novelist. And a rock star.

Another angle, though, is that I'm convinced that that stuff--the talent, the drive, the know-how--are all inside me somewhere, and it's just a matter of tapping into it. So, I'm a sucker for anything that purports to get me there, via parallel universes or hypnosis or whatever.

Last night, while my lover was falling asleep on the sofa cuddled next to me, I imagined meeting myself as a famous novelist. I asked myself what I must do to become that me, and she said, "Lots of things."

Great.

"Where do I start?"

"Think of yourself as a novelist. You are a novelist already."

I repeated to myself, "I am a novelist. I am a novelist. I am a novelist."

A few half-asleep words with Jessica, then back to my novelist-self.

"New affirmation. Got it. What else?"

"Lots of things."

"What can I do now?"

"Write everything down. I mean, everything. Thoughts, ideas, imagined scenes--just write it all down."

When I was in college I would write essays and term papers by putting ideas on half-sheets of paper, then arranging them the way I wanted before typing them up. I've always thought this would be a good way to write a novel, but the arranging part seems daunting. So I spent the next few hours trying to find a program that allows me to write in snippets to be arranged later. I can't seem to find one. Ken Atchity, in A Writer's Time, suggests this method. I think. I've read a lot of books on writing, and it seems like that's the one . . . It could the The Weekend Novelist . . . . At any rate, the prospect of laying out all those cards, over 600 of them, and arranging them is a little daunting. Not to mention that if I hand-write them, I won't know my word count. So I want a computer program--a really simple one--that counts words and keeps track of note cards. That's all. I'd like the notecards to be shuffle-able.

Sounds simple, yet no one seems to have done it yet.

I'm wandering with my thoughts, I know. There is still some disconnect between present-time Faithy and novelist Faithy. Let's play a game of "Wouldn't it be nice?"

(side note: I was getting ready to bitch about my schedule at at the mcspa the other day, and decided that I should do a "wouldn't it be nice if . . . " instead of my usual bitching. The first one I came up with was, "Wouldn't it be nice if the front desk knew what the fuck they were doing?" I don't think that's how the game works, but . . . there you go.)

So, wouldn't it be nice if . . .
I wrote full-time for a living?
I knew what happened next?
I had a computer program as detailed above?
I had confidence in my ability to finish a novel?
I knew what the fuck I was doing?
the words came easily and quickly?
I had already written novels so I knew it could be done and what all it entails?

I had a plan for what to do when I got stuck this month. Just to say, "What happens next?" and then keep writing, whether it's good or not. I get bored with meandering stories, though, whether reading or writing them. Next year maybe I'll try outlining in October. Or maybe I'll learn to program and write that ideal writing program myself. Make it an extension for OpenOffice.org Writer.

I'd like to talk to Abraham, get them to convince me that I can--get them to show me what to do next. I doubt they would cooperate; they seem to think the journey is fun. And, well, puzzles are fun, so I guess they're right.

In with the laundry, and then . . . what happens next? Or even, what happens later? and worry with what happens next later.

Processes

I thought I'd use one of Abraham's processes to help me deal with all the negative feelings I'm having around my mom right now.

This is where I started: I had a drunken breakdown Saturday night. I recommend eating a full meal before starting on wine, by the way, and drinking a full glass of water for every glass of wine you drink. I did neither Saturday. And if you're concerned about access to water, bring your own.

I sobbed all over said girlfriend (she is truly a saint), about how I hated that she was going through such a rough time, how I was frustrated at a friend who hadn't told me I'd hurt her feelings (even though she knows I sometimes need these things spelled out to me), and mostly, how I felt every time my mom left another voicemail.

Jessica (saint/girlfriend) suggested I write a letter to my mom, since my main complaint is that she seems to think that I embarked upon my life of sin with little to no forethought. Perhaps if I explained my reasoning to her, she might not get it, but at least I'd have the satisfaction of knowing I'd tried. Even if I don't send the letter to her, it might do me some good to get all my feelings out.

I think it's a pretty good idea in theory, but, honestly, it makes my stomach hurt. I've written these sorts of letters before, and they've taken me from despair to rage, which is a good three steps up the emotional scale, but I tend to get a little stuck in rage. I'm already in a rage about my mom, and if I think about potentially actually sending the letter to her, I have to edit out most of my emotions. Again, stomach hurt. Also, in the past when I've tried to reason with Mom about religion, her response is almost invariably shock and horror that I should ever question any of it. More stomach hurt.

So I watched The Law of Attraction in Action yesterday, as I recovered from my hangover. (I appreciate the lack of vomit in said recovery, by the way.) Abraham spoke of a process in which you start with where you are (rage) and state where you want to end up (hopefulness or above), and keep making statements to bridge that gap.

So where I am--really furious with my mom. Where I want to be . . . honestly, where I really want to be is in a place where my mom is happy for me. I am happy in my life; she seems to be blinded by her prejudice to my happiness. I don't think that's a fair goal, though; mostly because it involves changing her perception of reality (which is her problem), but also because it seems unattainable.

A more achievable goal, I think, would be to just not care. And, generally speaking, I don't. Repeated telephone messages, though, have gotten to me. Where is that goal on the emotional scale? Somewhere between boredom and contentment?

Perhaps a better goal would be to not care how many messages I get. Or, more ambitious yet, to be able to answer the phone calmly when she calls. (This morning's message, by the way, was wondering whether I'd thought about my AIDS risk that she pointed out last week.)

What is it about her that makes me feel separated from who I truly am? I think it's mostly that she reminds me of where I came from: fear, ignorance and prejudice, which I have worked hard to get past. It's also that I feel that I'm less important to her than her religion, a religion that I see as full of flaws.

But I know who I truly am. I am god in Faithy's body. I gotta keep reminding myself of that--in just typing it, I feel calmer and more in control.

Another separating point--she is so out of control with her anxiety that it feels contagious. I know that it won't affect me unless I let it.

Again, feeling a little better.

In order to be able to talk to her, though, I think I need to remember things about her that I appreciate. The more I see her as fearful and ignorant, the more I bring that out in her.

She is, at least, sincere. She honestly believes that I'm going to catch AIDS and die, then burn in hell eternally. Who can blame her for being a worry wart about that, if she really believes it's true?

She's pretty smart, too. She loves reading, and even while she fears the onset of Alzheimer's (which her mother died with), she is constantly in the middle of some novel or other. Usually a Christian novel nowadays, but still, that counts for something.

This is going to sound negative, but it is something I appreciate: she's a vivid object lesson in the Law of Attraction. Homophobic with a gay daughter; obsessing over her health and mind and manifesting endless doctor's appointments and diagnoses; she is one of the main reasons I have decided to focus on the positive in my life, because I see where focusing on the negative has gotten her.

I remember an incident in my childhood; I accused her of gossiping about someone, and I couldn't understand why, if gossiping was so bad, she continued to repeat stories. At first she angrily said she wasn't gossiping, then later she came to me crying, apologized for speaking ill of whoever it was, and thanked me for pointing it out to her. She didn't stop the habit, by a long shot, but it showed me that grown-ups could see their own faults. That was news.

She and my father both (my father more, really) encouraged me to view religious teaching seriously and critically, which I believe led me to eventually reject all of it. "Eat the meat and spit out the bones," was the axiom repeated at our church, which I have taken as my attitude toward learning anything new.

She encouraged scholarship, in a way. She never encouraged me to become an engineer, or to follow any other masculine-sounding pursuit, but she and my father sent me through college twice on their meager budget.

Music was important in our household, and while our tastes are vastly different (she's a big fan of John Philip Sousa), it's a love that's abided for me. And we're both great fans of musicals; I wonder if she realizes exactly how gay musicals are.

She makes an awesome blueberry cobbler.

And so now I'm feeling better--maybe not hopeful or optimistic, but at least content--maybe I could write that letter.