What is it like?

Nobody ever said being a writer would be easy. There are scads of articles and books and blogs about the difficulties, the loneliness, the anxiety. This is not one of those blogs. It can't be for a number of reasons, the primary one being this ain't what I do for living. Yet. Nope, I'm still hanging on to the dreaded "day job" for now so in my mind, writing is the spoon I'm using to carve out the tunnel in my cell. One tiny scoop at a time and I'm that much closer to breathing fresher air.

But what is it about writing that makes those of us who write constantly hold it out for inspection? Get two writers in a room and invariably they will talk about their process and projects with the same weird rolling eyes as the people in Close Encounters creating huge mashed potato towers. What is it about writing?

My own sister has recently joined the fray and we were trying to answer the question: what's it like to write? Not "Where do you get your ideas?" or "How did you come up with that?" but "What is it like when you are onto the scent of a project, when you're in the clutches of an idea?" Monica said it's like the first time you have sex - you start out thinking you know what it's going to be like and not entirely sure what exactly is involved and afterwards you think "Man, that was so much better than I expected." Clearly, my sister and I had very different first time experiences! (I'm hoping my mom still can't find this blog.)

What is it like for you? How do you describe it? Throw your pile of mashed potatoes on the table and lets build that tower.

Does the audience even know the rules?

First I'd like to congratulate myself for escaping that rare but potent phenomenon of having every aspect of my life-- work, family, friends, technology, even pets -- align their needs with such precision that no shred of productivity could possibly escape the swirling vortex. Whew. Gravity readings are once again normal.

Everyone who presents a product to the public knows how important it is to identify your audience. There's no point in selling snow to Eskimos, or to anyone in the lower 48 states right now. Words like demographics and focus groups are wielded like weapons in the war for attention. In radio, there is a push toward pinpoint programming, narrow target decisions that honestly make me nervous. The idea that every 34 year old female with a college degree and two children wants/thinks/needs the exact same thing smacks of a Soylent Green factory in reverse. Grandmas can like rap; teenage boys can want love songs. Sure, listeners, like readers, need to know what to expect in the broad picture. I don't want to turn on an oldies station and hear a heated political diatribe, how hard and fast are those boundaries?

I'm thinking fiction right now. As I mentioned earlier, I'm trying my hand at mystery after romping madly in the world of urban fantasy, and I can almost hear sighs of relief around me. Many folks who have read Storyteller and its sequel enjoyed the story and provided me with priceless feedback. When I told them I'm considered an urban fantasy writer, more than one sort of grimaced and said "Oh, I don't read fantasy." Uh...well...yeah you do. You just didn't know it.

So I'm curious. You genre writers and readers out there, all of us who have to tag our work to keep it out of the sacrosanct waters of "Literature" do you ever feel limited or chafed under your label? Do genre markings help or hurt your cause? Do you wonder if your paranormal romance crosses the line into horror? Is your YA carrying around a thriller? Do you think hard-boiled mystery lovers might groove on your urban western if they could only find it on the right shelf?

When I want a mystery, I like knowing it's a mystery, but I've been happily surprised before to find one that's also a travelogue or a western or a romance. How do you broaden your base appeal if your work does cross a few lines?

Two worlds, one body, and a bad elbow

Trying to get this out before my arm rises up in revolt and crawls out the mail slot. I mentioned earlier that I don't believe in reality, but as I sit here, I'm wondering if that's entirely accurate. I think it might be closer to say I have trouble deciding which reality to believe in. (Okay, philosophy majors, relax.)

I just finished a tough chapter in the sequel to my novel and I'm stuck in that weird, throbbing membrane between two worlds. Those of you who are unfortunate enough to be around me after a writing session already know the half-sentence, glassy eyed state I'm in. For those of you who have never seen this Altered States scene, let me walk you through it. Quickly, since my elbow is on fire.

I can't speak for all writers. Hell, I can hardly speak for myself. But there is a sensation that comes from writing that, if I could put it in a lotion or a drink or a sex toy, I would make a bazillion dollars. It is the uncanny sensation of existing in two worlds at the same time. I'm not talking about that all too familiar sensation of having your mind in two places at once. You know, talking on the phone while you answer your email and pretend to listen to one of your coworkers complaining as you scratch your ankle with your big toe. That's not it. That's about as far from it as you can get. That, in my opinion, is not being in ANY world. This is a far different, sublime sensation of touching a live wire in a universe far, far away.

It usually starts like this. I sit down at the computer with all my usual totems in place. I'm not much of a totem person, but even I have a few touchstones. There's a candle lit, mostly to hide the smell of the litter box down the basement stairs. My notepad is beside me to catch any weird little scribbles I need to make and to keep track of my word count. (NaNoWriMo habits die hard! More on that later.) I have a big cup of coffee, now in my Greenbrier mug, courtesy of my sister Monica and bare feet. That last bit I used to think was unimportant, but now I'm not so sure. I have only the barest framework of an idea of where the chapter will go and I start to type.

I would love to tell you I promptly pull an Isasc Asimov and hammer out three hours of solid prose, but that would be a huge lie. I sort of scratch out a sentence. Delete it. Reword it. Swear. Get another line or two down. Bemoan my miserable typing skills. Swear again and then the most amazing thing happens. My fingers take over and I begin to think, not in my head, but from the knuckles down. And then it happens. I am in two worlds at the same time. I can see my kitchen. I can certainly find the M&Ms over and over again and my coffee cups keeps getting refilled. But all the while I'm chewing and pouring and muttering and typing, I'm fully present, fully immersed in a world more real, more colorful, more immediate than any I've ever known.

It doesn't last long. Two, maybe three hours, although the sessions are getting longer the more disciplined I become. Sentences, scenes, emotions, hungers, they run through me like light through glass and even as I'm lost in it, somewhere I'm thinking "Man, this is fabulous!" (Not necessarily the writing, just the sensation. At this point, judging yourself is lethal.) And just as suddenly as it started *pop* I'm on the other side with a sensation I have no choice but to describe to you as squirting out. Believe me, I've searched for another way to describe it but until my French gets much better, there is no other way. I squirt through some sort of membrane and I'm back in my kitchen. Just my kitchen. My feet are on the floor. I have chocolate breath and coffee jitters and, tonight at least, a red-hot elbow from typing.

Save. Print. Reread. Even when the prose is, shall we say iffy?, rereading what happened when I was straddling that chasm is surreal. It's the ultimate leap of faith. It's tunnelling down into the imagination and standing back and watching what splashes up. That sensation, more than any drug or any drama, will make you blissfully suspicious of all the little required toll-booths of everyday reality. Even the reality of needing an icepack for my abused elbow. As I said earlier, if I could bottle it, I'd be a billionaire. But if I had to choose between selling it and feeling it? A billion dollars doesn't seem all that great.

Okay, I'll let THIS MUCH in...

Ah, irony. There is no escape from it. It makes reality look like a child's game. Here's the thing: I really don't believe in reality; at least not the way it was sold to me. I don't believe there is nothing hiding in the closet. I know, as well as I know my own name, that there IS something under the bed and I am almost 100% convinced that my last relationship was doomed because of that mirror I broke. I mean, seven years is seven years, right?

My writing reflects this belief. In my upcoming novel, Storyteller, we stroll directly into a fully formed world of people living secretly among us. Sure they look like us. They go to our schools and date your daughters and sons. They also speak their own language among themselves and live a lot longer than we do. (They have a few other secrets too, but we'll let them tell you about it after publication.) Science fiction? Urban fantasy? Not real? Prove it. How do you prove that something doesn't exist? How do you prove that something you can't see isn't really hidden? How do you stop a dizzying list of rhetorical questions from getting away from you?

Sorry. Back to my point and, yes,I have one. Irony. I don't believe in the hard squared corners of reality as such, but even a dark-corner-surfer like myself has to acknowledge that these days, blogs and websites and Facebook and Tweets are a reality, a blessedly free, mad, public hootenanny of reality and so, here I go! I hope you'll come along with me on my quest to liberate the world from the belief that staff meetings and webinars and legal sized envelopes are no more concrete than time traveling embezzlers and folks living 500 years on chocolate, blood and sex. Hey, if you had to choose your reality, which would YOU pick?