Let me tell you a story, my dear reader. Hopefully, you’ll find something useful in it like I did.
Trash
My husband and I go to a sound system store looking to buy some speakers for his truck. He has purchased a whole audio system before and just wants to replace two speakers that have burned.
The store manager and my husband discuss the speakers. My husband holds the speakers in his hands and tells him he bought them online.
The manager says, “Trash!” His face reddened with the sun as he had to come outside.
My husband shows him the amp.
“Trash,” the man says, his voice confident.
My husband pauses, bites his lower lip, and looks at me. He’s upset, but he continues. “I bought this crossover at Best Buy.”
“Trash! Come see what I got. Now this system is high quality.”
We follow the man to his truck where he blasts the music. My husband nods and reaffirms the man’s statements. Then we go into the store where he shows us speakers, an amp, and a crossover. He spends ten minutes showing my husband a whole system that costs $3,000.
My husband nods but doesn’t say anything. He’s paying attention. I’m getting bored.
The manager finally says. “This is what you need. You’re ready to level up?”
My husband smiles and says, “Trash!”
In my husband’s truck, he blasts his music so loud that the hairs in my ears tingle. I tell myself, Trash isn’t that bad after all.
Challenge
I only feel proud when I can draft, edit, and finish an essay or chapter perfectly within the timeframe I have assigned myself. But that doesn’t always work. I have a full-time job, a family, and multiple projects pulling me away from my writing. To hold myself accountable I created a writing group LitFit with idea starter Melissa Mills. While Melissa couldn’t continue, I stayed with the group and it is still holding on. It has served me as a way to keep me writing. Every morning I sign on and set a timer and we write. I do this before I start work.
The hour doesn’t always go as planned. I used to blame myself for taking 20 -30 minutes fumbling with my planner, the mess on my desk, browsing thru my emails or attending to whatever interruptions came my way. But that’s my process and sometimes I only get to write for 30 minutes, sometimes less. So this week, I followed Jami Attenberg’s 1000 words of summer challenge.
But I feared that my writing would be trash and I could almost hear the manager from the auto sound store reading my work and saying, “Trash”. Still, the challenge worked this week. I set the goal of 1000 words a day for a week and did it.
5000 words worth of trash.
This, of course, won’t work for everyone, and actually, it might not work for me next week, but 1000 words soon after I brush my teeth worked. A couple of times, I had to write on my phone! I never do that, but I was committed and felt accomplished.
Right now, I’m working on two projects. I’m in the drafting process of one and revising the other one. The 1000 words challenge didn’t work for revising and so that fell down the cracks. For revising, I tell myself a chapter a day. 1000 words and a chapter might be too much and it doesn’t always work that way but it’s a work in progress.
Nancy Glass, an alumnx from my same writing program, gives some excellent tips on her How to Maintain Your Writing Momentum After You Finish Your MFA craft essay. It’s worth reading even if you don’t have a MFA.
What I’m reading
I started reading Evicted by Princeton sociologist and MacArthur "Genius" Matthew Desmond. He follows eight families in Milwaukee as they try to keep a roof over their heads. I’ve only started so I’m not sure. I’m also reading Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi. It has been interesting learning about how the human hierarchy started to be based on skin color.
Who’s impacted me this week
I interviewed Will. He’s experiencing homelessness after years of working in public health and then getting skin cancer. He doesn’t qualify for social security benefits making it difficult to rent an apartment. I met him near my house sitting in the scorching Florida heat. He was still wearing a suit. At the beginning of our interview, I asked him to tell me a story, his story. It was a story of hard work, love, and regret towards his ex-wife and kids, and many injustices.
He reminded me that the reason I write is to tell stories about the human condition, to feel an array of emotions, and elicit those same emotions from my readers, hoping that in the process of sharing those emotions, we can understand and connect with each other a little more. It also reminded me to be grateful for my life and to continue my work in affordable housing.
I’d love to know what inspired you this week. How do you tackle writing and revising? or even working on multiple projects?
As always, much love to you, my dear reader, and I hope your week is filled with joy and inspiration. Thank you for reading my posts.
You are doing way too much! Reading your story made me dizzy. I know what a good writer you are but I want to recommend something for you to read and practice to help you calm down and visualize "Infinite Possibilities" by Mike Dooley. It's inspirational. I sure miss you and wish you were here. I've finished my book and am about to seek an agent. I've got some leads :)
Loved this!