It's Been Two Months and Change Since my Last Confession

Today is the third day of kindergarten for the twins and it has been a bad day so far.

I had rehearsal for KORCZAK'S CHILDREN last night and didn't get enough sleep. The twins got to bed late and didn't get enough sleep. School is messing with them in a serious way--both kids really want Mommy time and we don't have as much time to do things like we were doing all summer long, and I think they are having a hard time with it.

So today we were walking to school, and we were switching off who was holding my hand each block. Each block that Orson wasn't holding my hand, he whined and cried the whole way. I asked Tabby to let me hold Orson's hand the rest of the way to school and she then started whining and crying. I solved the problem by putting my travel mug of coffee in the pocket on the side of Tabby's bag and held both their hands. But the whole way I was just about in tears myself out of frustration at how badly the morning had gotten.

And after I dropped them off at their classes and started heading back home, I felt it.

I don't know how it feels for anyone else, but for me, it feels like my heart slowly starts to harden into lead and sits heavy in my chest. Then I start to feel heavy in my head too, as I slowly realize depression has returned.

To be fair, it's always been there, but the last 2 months or so has been pretty depression free (anxiety still there, but that's another story entirely). But I had one of those moments where a book changed my life.

I had gone to Goodwill in Waverly, Iowa, earlier in the summer and had gotten a copy of FURIOUSLY HAPPY by Jenny Lawson for $2 on CD. I opened the package to make sure the CDs were all in good condition. It appeared that the first one was the only one listened to with some scratches, but the rest were in perfect shape. I figured someone who was definitely not one of Jenny's tribe must have had a copy of it, listened to the first one and thought NOOOOOPE but that person's nope is my YAS. I listened to it on the way to and from Waverly every day that I worked. And I felt better that I was not alone as I listened and laughed.

And then I got to it--the chapter that changed my life. Wedged between chapters entitled 'How Many Carbs are in a Foot?' and 'George Washington's Dildo' was 'Pretend You're Good at It'. In this chapter, Jenny recalls how she was struggling to record her first book LET'S PRETEND THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN and she messaged her friend Neil Gaiman for advice and he returned with one phrase:

PRETEND YOU'RE GOOD AT IT

As I listened to this chapter, I felt something shift. Something that was missing showed back up, or maybe it was more like a tectonic shift that jutted a new mountain or something. I don't know. I just know that something that was supposed to be there before was suddenly there and the depression just didn't have the strength it had before.

And I went the entire summer working and realizing how much depression had stolen from me. My self worth (which I have since regained). So much time and so much writing, but I am making up for it now.

I am still working on DUSK, even after the summer working hiatus and now the fall play hiatus. 

I didn't and don't miss depression, even though it had been my constant companion for like ALWAYS, and I am definitely not going to stop taking my meds, because there still is an underlying problem that can make depression re-surface and anxiety that won't go away (I'll start working on that next).

But that heavy feeling in both my brain and heart were gone. It was nice.

But after a bad morning of yelling, cajoling, frustrated whining and tears, it has decided to return.

So I have to pretend I'm good at it. I just wrote it on the inside of my arm, just like Jenny does. Because I have to. And if the depression lingers, I will just have to keep writing it on my arm.

So here is what depression is telling me right now:

* you suck as a mom because you ignore your kids and you yell at them constantly

* you suck as a writer because you are STILL working on DUSK and you haven't even gotten that far into world building

* you suck as an actor because you cannot get those lines down, no matter how hard you try

* you are just weird--none of the other moms at drop off and pick up look like you. None of them like you. None of them will be your friend.

* you suck as a housekeeper because your house is STILL a mess and you cannot get it under control

So here is what I am telling depression right now:

* I had a bad day. I don't ignore my kids. They are getting older and I don't have to be watching them every second of every day. They can entertain themselves. And they will have to listen eventually. Just try to not yell. You're only human and everyone has bad days.

* you don't suck as a writer because you have been working continuously on one project for the longest time you ever have. that is a huge accomplishment. This year will be the third NaNoWriMo I will work on this novel. That is something on its own.

* I am not the best actor, but I am trying. And also, that line is super hard. 

* I want more mom friends, but if any mom is turned off by my freak flag, oh well. 

* i worked all summer. Bill has had health issues all summer. And the kids have been home all summer. All of that has conspired to make a mess. It's fine. I'll fix it soon.

I thought writing this out would help and it did. Kind of. I am going to try and not dwell on this and write. And study my lines. And enjoy THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE while it's still on Netflix.

Bring it on.

Dusk or, The Book in Which a Girl Finds Her Long Lost Twin Sister and Together They Defeat the Patriarchy

I haven't written plays in a really long time. Part of me feels like I need to change the name of the blog or maybe what it's about or something, but I still feel like what I do here is the same thing right? Like this is still how I build my work, which is dramatic, either for the stage or because it's not a comedy. I've always written drama, either fiction or on the stage, so there you go. Not changing the blog name, but I might update what it's about. Not that you asked. I am more telling myself this.

Anyway, that's not what this post is about. I have been feeling SUPER overwhelmed lately. Part of this is just because I have anxiety and depression and they really like to fight for control, which sounds completely insane, but hello? I have anxiety and depression, i have been on medication for it for over 10 years and have gone to therapy for about half of those, so yeah. It sounds crazy because I am crazy. And I know I didn't talk about that a lot before, but guess what? Times change.

Also, I have been writing mostly fiction since the twins were born. I did NaNoWriMo the last four years. The last two years I have done work on my current novel, DUSK. The year before that I wrote a draft of my novel about the Holocaust, IN THE BUNKER, and the year before that I wrote a draft of my first work of fiction in a couple of decades, INSIGHT. That first work I didn't finish the draft, mostly because it was a work of horror and it was totally frightening me. But IN THE BUNKER was a breakthrough that I had been waiting for for 15 years. And finishing that draft felt like I got the novel that I knew what inside me out, after working so long and so hard to do it.

And after working my entire writing life to get IN THE BUNKER out, I wasn't sure where I was going to go next. Or how I would get there. Or if I would get there. Or if I would write again.

I had planned on working on a second draft of IN THE BUNKER the year after I finished that draft, but the idea for DUSK was planted inside me by a dear friend, Minda, who was working on a project about the future basically according to Trump.

She and I sat down at a coffee shop about three years ago maybe close to right now, and as she outlined her work, my brain started turning.

I had been very sad and lost and angry since Trump became president. I didn't sleep that night. The next day I was a zombie and I just kept thinking that I would wake up. I hugged my kids and cried and said that I was sorry and I tried and we have to keep trying. Fast forward to now, and I was clearly right to be upset and angry about it. I could not have imagined what has happened during 45's presidency.

Or, at least I guessed that I couldn't have imagined worse.

And then DUSK snuck up on me. I started doing research on a ton of things--all the terrible things 45 says and does, the environment and what its destruction means for all of us, war, genocide, The Holocaust and Nazi Germany.....among many other things. I found myself creating a world where I took everything that i was learning and took it to the worst most terrible extreme. I found myself building a horrifying and disgusting future for the United States, which started with 45 and ends with the tag line: 'A Girl Finds Her Long Lost Twin Sister and Together They Defeat the Patriarchy'.

It's more than that. I had to create two whole new religions, a new world ravaged by the changes of war, genocide, genetic altering and climate change.

The really weird part? I finished a draft on 2017. I continued doing research and writing through all of 2018, and kept going on the draft in NaNoWriMo in 2018 (I didn't finish because I really hated where the writing was going, but in retrospect, it wasn't that bad, i think my anxiety and depression were basically being terrible assholes). But I didn't stop. I kept on going.

And I am still working on it. And I haven't stopped, except for when life gets in the way (which is often with twins who are turning 5 next month, a part time job, a full time life as a wife and mother, political stuff, etc.).

But here's the thing. Okay, two things.

First, I keep thinking that I am pushing the story far enough into insane horror and then 45 does something even crazier. And then I wonder why I am still working on this novel, when I keep having to butt heads with all this horror, from the past, from my fictional world, and the present.

In some ways, I started writing DUSK because I had nothing else I could do with my anger and sadness. I did it to cope with the horrors. I tried to create worse only to be faced with even worse in my fictional world. I am slightly scared to see where the hell this thing is going to go, mostly because I feel that no matter how bad things get, the present and reality will be as bad.

Second, I would give all of this--the last three years of working on this novel, creating these characters, working on this world of horrors, and some hope in there too--so this would all stop. It feel like we are just on a shitty timeline filled with racism, genocide, concentration camps, migrant children dying....not that we didn't have these things or similar before, but, I don't know. Maybe it's because I am a cis white woman who lives in the middle of Iowa, maybe I am kind of removed enough to be shocked by things still. Or maybe just human enough still to hope that things couldn't be this bad, or that I could still see good in the world...I don't know how to explain it exactly.

I just needed to get this down because this work has been a wonderful journey of trusting myself as a writer and trusting the characters and the story to know where to go with the research and how to craft the story, but at the same time, it isn't worth everything terrible that has happened, not worth the lives lost and families destroyed.

So what will I do?

I guess I will keep writing, because there's nothing else I can really do to help.

I've Become One of *Those* People

It's been two years since my last blog post.

A lot of things have changed.

The kids are older--almost 5. Almost in kindergarten and it's almost time for me to get a full time job.

I have been working part-time for the last month and a half and it's been hard on everything--the writing, the house, the kids, the husband. Trying to stay above it all--failing admirably.

And I am not writing plays right now, although I think one of the last posts from the last 5 years might have mentioned it.

I am working on the same novel I have been working on since October 2017. I started with 'Dusk' for NaNoWriMo 2017 and October is the official start of when I started researching things for the novel and ideas I had, mostly because a friend of mine had started a work of dystopian fiction based on the possible horrible trajectory of Trump's presidency and policy, and something in those discussions planted a seed that I am still tending to today.

It's strange working on the same thing for almost three NaNoWriMo cycles. I have never worked continuously on a work for this long. Like, no exaggeration, I have been writing in some manner since I was like 7 years old--I am going to be 44 this year, so that's like more than 4 decades. Never worked on something continuously this long. The only other thing i have worked on comparably was the NaNoWriMo win from 2016--'In the Bunker', which was based on the story of Janusz Korczak, which i had been researching and attempting to write for 15 years, and the story of the Goebbels children, which i had been working on for significantly less time (maybe 3 years). But I didn't work on it continuously like this

I point this out because this work seems different. Everything seems difference since I won NaNoWriMo with 'In the Bunker' in 2016. 'In the Bunker' felt like the work I had been trying to write my whole life leading up to that, and now I have maybe more confidence? Maybe more tenacity to keep on keeping on with it, even when the work sucks? Like I have always said mean, mean, mean things to myself as a writer that would often derail my work, and I think those things are still there, but maybe not as loud? It's kind of hard to describe without sounding like a raving lunatic.

At any rate, I am working on 'Dusk' still. I am world building, which is something i haven't ever done before, and it is hard. And I'm not even starting from scratch with a world that doesn't exist. I am taking our current world and pushing it through a dystopian sieve of whatever the crap the president thinks he is going to accomplish if he had no holds barred, and going from there. It's still a lot of work to make it work, and I am enjoying the different things I am learning about. Well, enjoy might be too strong of a word. Or the most inadequate word for something so incredibly scary, sad and possible.

I am also creating at least two new religions, which is also hard. But enjoyable.

I am also listening to 'Furiously Happy' by Jenny Lawson, and I am feeling super inspired. Especially when I heard Pretend You're Good at It (which, is honestly best just heard or read by her, so either get the book and look for that chapter, or listen to the book, either way, super good and super inspiring). Like Jenny, I have mental illness that I am in treatment for. And I often have to Pretend I'm Good at It. I feel like that might be my first tattoo, because it feels like something I NEED. And I feel like maybe i have been taking Neil Gaiman's advice this WHOLE THREE YEARS without even knowing, because when I heard that story, i felt seen and like I had just figured out how I was doing what I was doing the last three years and like I'm going to continue doing.

So, that is my brief update.

I also joined the PTO at the elementary school my kids were going to for pre-school and I was the secretary, and it was AWESOME. I really really enjoyed it. SO MUCH. Who am I? I was sad to leave this school (pre-school here is weird--not required by the state for each student, so there's only so many seats and there's more kids than seats so it's really a crapshoot and some kind of alignment of the sun, moon and stars to get into a class and which class you end up at). So we were not at our 'home' elementary, which we will be at this fall.

I am also helping to pass the bond for the new high school. I am being absolutely the most irritating human on the internet about this, so I might as well add that irritation to my blog. bond.cfschools.org for more info. VOTE YES ON JUNE 25.

And that is what I am up to.