Thursday, January 27
Finding focus and purpose
So as you know, I'm still playing around with this blog thing, wondering how to use it, what its purpose is, what I should be publishing. I think I'm getting closer.
So far, I've been writing mostly about three or four kinds of things: what it's like to live on the edge of nowhere; some family/personal/diary-type stuff for friends and family reading; some political news (and implied) commentary; and some random stuff about movies, music, things I've read or made up and so on.
Well, I've been in a funk the past few days trying to figure something else out, and you know how one thing always leads to another? Well, here I am again. For me, it always seems to lead me back here and what I want to do. (It's all about me!) And so I'm going to find-tune the focus of The Edge of Nowhere a bit, at least for a while, the next few months at least, to see if it can serve a higher, more selfish, more ambitious, purpose.
So, here's what's been happening the past 10 days or so to bring me here:
1) I'm not always thrilled with my current job (the work I mostly love, the people I work for and the environment I work in is not always what I would dream it could be, etc. etc.), so feeling fed up and getting some positive encouragement, I applied for another State Farm job, in the Learning and Development Department, where I'd essentially become a teacher of classes and a consultant to help certain TBA areas of the company define the learning/development needs of their employees. Not so much writing. Ho hum, I know, but at least it would be a (hopefully) healthy change of scenery, help my attitude. No word yet on an interview; still waiting to hear.
2) Meanwhile, I've been studying and researching and thinking about and talking about a return to graduate school, to pursue a master's in communication science and strategy types of things. In fact, yesterday I spent a bit more than an hour with the main professor at Colorado State Univerisity's grad school for technical journalism and communication. My goal would be to get some credentials and knowledge to launch some sort of business communications consulting career -- get rich sharing my knowledge/experience helping people like me at companies like mine. Or going on to get a PhD and teach at the college level. New career, more money, more flexibility. Or so the thinking goes.
3) Meanwhile, I've been reading and editing a novel for a friend. It's a great experience for me as well, and is teaching me much about the critical process I need to go through on my own novels and fiction. Giving me focus.
4) I recently read two unrelated (and yet oddly related) books: "U and I" by Nicholson Baker, and "Chronicles, Volume 1" by Bob Dylan. The Baker book is by a writer about a writer/idol (Updike is the U) and is a book about writing about writing about writing, as my friend Eric Krell (who's reading it with me) says, a meta-look at a one-sided literary rivalry and the process of writing/comparing yourself to your literary heroes. In fact Eric sent me a very inspiring e-mail the other day about U and I, which is about what we (he and I, and you other writers) need to be doing with our own writing, which, boiled down crassly, is: "Shut up and write."
My reading of Dylan's book is this: It's about ambition, single-mindedness and pursuit of a personal dream and ambition, and it tracks his progress from wanting to get out of Minnesota, to wanting be a great folk singer, to wanting to be a great Woody Guthrie, to wanting to be himself. See where this is going yet?
5) At work, I'm taking part in a test to introduce the web log technology to our internal employee audiences. I'm learning what works and doesn't work in blogging, much like I'm learning it here on the edge of nowhere (which was started in response to a work need to see what web technology is like and explains is lack of directoin and focus thusfar.)
6) The CSU professor yesterday asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. Truely. It's the first thing he asked, and the answer I gave him wasn't the truth. I laughed, admitted I didn't really know, and then launched into some practiced and rehearsed messages (yes, this is how I think now) about why I wanted to get into his program, about learning, consulting, teaching, like I noted above, etc. But the real, honest answer is: I want to write fiction. I want to write good fiction. I want to publish fiction. This has been the honest answer since my sophomore year in college, although until the past 12 or 15 months, I've never been able to say it outloud, much less publish this info to all my friends and family. It's been a secret desire of mine every since I took a short story class my sophmore year at a junior college, and it's been the thing I've been trying and failing to do nearly every year ever since (with a few gaps around the time when I first met Kristen and after my children were born). My parents weren't particularly encouraging (that's nice, but you need a real job) and so I ended up working at newspapers for a few five or six years, and then working as a writer/editor etc in corporate America for the past 16 years. I've been a professional writer for 20 years. And yet, what I want to do is write.
7) I've been writing a four-sentence sports mini column for the past eight weeks for the local newspaper. You know what? I'm a curmudgeon, and I've been there, done that. That experiment is over.
8) I've been inspired my brother's blog (see link to Paul) and his column and essay writing and by Nick's enthusiasm and opportunity to see the world, by my two-person reading group with Krell, and by Jared's completed novel, and by my daughter's musical abilities and by my son's movie making and by Kristen's overall arty go-for-it-ness in all things (pottery, cello, quilting, knitting, etc. -- she just keeps finishing projects and I spin my wheels).
9) I just want to be me. (Whew: New-agey touchy-feely mid-life crisis averted)
So all these these things have been mixing around my head the past few months, weeks, days, and it was getting more and more confused and I was getting quieter and more flummoxed. Introverted. Self reflecting. Stumped. But then it all made sense:
Shut up and write.
So, while I still ponder going to grad school and while I wait to see if I change jobs at State Farm, I'm going to just shut up and write.
And this blog is going to migrate from a random place of who knows what it is now into a personal tool that one day, when I'm a published writer earning an Academy award for adapting my best-selling critically praised novel into a screenplay, those who are interested in me the writer will be able to tune in and see behind the scenes as I draft my acceptance speech via this web log. And I can outsource to India and get someone to write my blog for me as I jetset around between our homes in La Jolla and Aspen (mention this post and you can stay with us for a week either place!)
And for those of you who are already out there, thanks for reading so far and I set you free. I appreciate the feedback you've given, and if you want to be with me from this new start (or umpteenth restart), I encourage you to stick around, check back and keep reading. Tell your friends, particularly in a few months, and particularly if your friends include literary agents, small press editors or big shots at the New Yorker. But if this new direction doesn't interest you, no hard feelings.
So, I may go back through the archives and prune a few things that don't make sense any more. And I may still include some stuff that seems random, but I'm going to try and learn now, and share my learnings with myself here in the blog. I'm going to make this a working tool to help me in my goal: to publish fiction (I realized today with the help of my friends Krell and Champ that my goal all these 20 years has been to write fiction instead of to publish fiction). I'm going to write about what I always wonder about when I go see writers at book signings: How do they do what they do? What's their schedule? How often do they write? Who's their influences? All that behind the scenes stuff. Plus: I'm going to use as an accountability tool, as they'd say at work, a way to measure my progress and report back on my goals and achievements, my collection of failures and the thrill of those first success: the first story accepted, the first story published, the first poem, the first novel, the first best-seller list.
I know, I know, it sounds freaking crazy. But one thing I'm going to differently this time is have confidence. And take myself seriously. I'm getting too old to screw around. It's time to shut up and write. So, with this post, I'm announcing with a certain false bravado that as of now, today, I will now work to publish.
And you can follow my journey, if you're at all interested, here on the edge of nowhere.
So far, I've been writing mostly about three or four kinds of things: what it's like to live on the edge of nowhere; some family/personal/diary-type stuff for friends and family reading; some political news (and implied) commentary; and some random stuff about movies, music, things I've read or made up and so on.
Well, I've been in a funk the past few days trying to figure something else out, and you know how one thing always leads to another? Well, here I am again. For me, it always seems to lead me back here and what I want to do. (It's all about me!) And so I'm going to find-tune the focus of The Edge of Nowhere a bit, at least for a while, the next few months at least, to see if it can serve a higher, more selfish, more ambitious, purpose.
So, here's what's been happening the past 10 days or so to bring me here:
1) I'm not always thrilled with my current job (the work I mostly love, the people I work for and the environment I work in is not always what I would dream it could be, etc. etc.), so feeling fed up and getting some positive encouragement, I applied for another State Farm job, in the Learning and Development Department, where I'd essentially become a teacher of classes and a consultant to help certain TBA areas of the company define the learning/development needs of their employees. Not so much writing. Ho hum, I know, but at least it would be a (hopefully) healthy change of scenery, help my attitude. No word yet on an interview; still waiting to hear.
2) Meanwhile, I've been studying and researching and thinking about and talking about a return to graduate school, to pursue a master's in communication science and strategy types of things. In fact, yesterday I spent a bit more than an hour with the main professor at Colorado State Univerisity's grad school for technical journalism and communication. My goal would be to get some credentials and knowledge to launch some sort of business communications consulting career -- get rich sharing my knowledge/experience helping people like me at companies like mine. Or going on to get a PhD and teach at the college level. New career, more money, more flexibility. Or so the thinking goes.
3) Meanwhile, I've been reading and editing a novel for a friend. It's a great experience for me as well, and is teaching me much about the critical process I need to go through on my own novels and fiction. Giving me focus.
4) I recently read two unrelated (and yet oddly related) books: "U and I" by Nicholson Baker, and "Chronicles, Volume 1" by Bob Dylan. The Baker book is by a writer about a writer/idol (Updike is the U) and is a book about writing about writing about writing, as my friend Eric Krell (who's reading it with me) says, a meta-look at a one-sided literary rivalry and the process of writing/comparing yourself to your literary heroes. In fact Eric sent me a very inspiring e-mail the other day about U and I, which is about what we (he and I, and you other writers) need to be doing with our own writing, which, boiled down crassly, is: "Shut up and write."
My reading of Dylan's book is this: It's about ambition, single-mindedness and pursuit of a personal dream and ambition, and it tracks his progress from wanting to get out of Minnesota, to wanting be a great folk singer, to wanting to be a great Woody Guthrie, to wanting to be himself. See where this is going yet?
5) At work, I'm taking part in a test to introduce the web log technology to our internal employee audiences. I'm learning what works and doesn't work in blogging, much like I'm learning it here on the edge of nowhere (which was started in response to a work need to see what web technology is like and explains is lack of directoin and focus thusfar.)
6) The CSU professor yesterday asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. Truely. It's the first thing he asked, and the answer I gave him wasn't the truth. I laughed, admitted I didn't really know, and then launched into some practiced and rehearsed messages (yes, this is how I think now) about why I wanted to get into his program, about learning, consulting, teaching, like I noted above, etc. But the real, honest answer is: I want to write fiction. I want to write good fiction. I want to publish fiction. This has been the honest answer since my sophomore year in college, although until the past 12 or 15 months, I've never been able to say it outloud, much less publish this info to all my friends and family. It's been a secret desire of mine every since I took a short story class my sophmore year at a junior college, and it's been the thing I've been trying and failing to do nearly every year ever since (with a few gaps around the time when I first met Kristen and after my children were born). My parents weren't particularly encouraging (that's nice, but you need a real job) and so I ended up working at newspapers for a few five or six years, and then working as a writer/editor etc in corporate America for the past 16 years. I've been a professional writer for 20 years. And yet, what I want to do is write.
7) I've been writing a four-sentence sports mini column for the past eight weeks for the local newspaper. You know what? I'm a curmudgeon, and I've been there, done that. That experiment is over.
8) I've been inspired my brother's blog (see link to Paul) and his column and essay writing and by Nick's enthusiasm and opportunity to see the world, by my two-person reading group with Krell, and by Jared's completed novel, and by my daughter's musical abilities and by my son's movie making and by Kristen's overall arty go-for-it-ness in all things (pottery, cello, quilting, knitting, etc. -- she just keeps finishing projects and I spin my wheels).
9) I just want to be me. (Whew: New-agey touchy-feely mid-life crisis averted)
So all these these things have been mixing around my head the past few months, weeks, days, and it was getting more and more confused and I was getting quieter and more flummoxed. Introverted. Self reflecting. Stumped. But then it all made sense:
Shut up and write.
So, while I still ponder going to grad school and while I wait to see if I change jobs at State Farm, I'm going to just shut up and write.
And this blog is going to migrate from a random place of who knows what it is now into a personal tool that one day, when I'm a published writer earning an Academy award for adapting my best-selling critically praised novel into a screenplay, those who are interested in me the writer will be able to tune in and see behind the scenes as I draft my acceptance speech via this web log. And I can outsource to India and get someone to write my blog for me as I jetset around between our homes in La Jolla and Aspen (mention this post and you can stay with us for a week either place!)
And for those of you who are already out there, thanks for reading so far and I set you free. I appreciate the feedback you've given, and if you want to be with me from this new start (or umpteenth restart), I encourage you to stick around, check back and keep reading. Tell your friends, particularly in a few months, and particularly if your friends include literary agents, small press editors or big shots at the New Yorker. But if this new direction doesn't interest you, no hard feelings.
So, I may go back through the archives and prune a few things that don't make sense any more. And I may still include some stuff that seems random, but I'm going to try and learn now, and share my learnings with myself here in the blog. I'm going to make this a working tool to help me in my goal: to publish fiction (I realized today with the help of my friends Krell and Champ that my goal all these 20 years has been to write fiction instead of to publish fiction). I'm going to write about what I always wonder about when I go see writers at book signings: How do they do what they do? What's their schedule? How often do they write? Who's their influences? All that behind the scenes stuff. Plus: I'm going to use as an accountability tool, as they'd say at work, a way to measure my progress and report back on my goals and achievements, my collection of failures and the thrill of those first success: the first story accepted, the first story published, the first poem, the first novel, the first best-seller list.
I know, I know, it sounds freaking crazy. But one thing I'm going to differently this time is have confidence. And take myself seriously. I'm getting too old to screw around. It's time to shut up and write. So, with this post, I'm announcing with a certain false bravado that as of now, today, I will now work to publish.
And you can follow my journey, if you're at all interested, here on the edge of nowhere.
Comments:
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Bravo! I commend you, Mr. Anderson, on your quest to make the world a richer place with your words. And I promise to be among the first in line to buy my copy!!!
Go for it, Eric. You'll do it, too. And I'm reminded, when I read about what you wondered about at book signings. Paul took Nick to see Patrick McManus when he was here in Leavenworth--this was several years ago, Nick was maybe 11-12. Nick had read and enjoyed several of McManus's books--his question for the author was, "Did you come in your limo?"
Terry
Terry
# posted by 
: 5:51 AM
: 5:51 AM
I'll be sure never to arrive in a limo, even if it's the Academy Awards. I'll just ride up on a bike, push it along the red carpet, lock it to one of those crowd-barriers, straighten the lapels on my tux, salute the photographers (who's that? they'll be saying), and enter.
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