Tag: marriage

Writers in Relationships: NaNoWriMo with your SO Days 22-25

Jaclyn1 Comment

Should writers date writers?

I have heard the advice that writers shouldn’t date writers. This is not advice I followed. In fact, I married one. 

My SO is also a writer. He’s already got a few books out in the wild. You might think this helps us understand each other, and in some ways it does. But in other ways, we are very, very different and often inscrutable to each other. Writers are notorious for being introverted and persnickety. We are no exception. How do you make it work when both people in the relationship are writers?

SO and I are very different writers. For one thing, he has never done NaNoWriMo. But this year was different. I talked him into participating in NaNo! Sort of…

Some people write with fountain pens and composition books and some writers need robots to tell them to write. (Shout out to WriterBot!)

How to Do NaNoWriMo with Your SO

I love tracking my word counts and setting goals and in some ways can be very methodical about my spreadsheets. I track what times of day I write best, schedule when I will take breaks, and give myself daily quotas in terms of what I want to achieve in my writing that day.

This is not how my SO writes. He doesn’t count or track or anything like that. So for him, “doing NaNo together” just meant that he started a new novel at the beginning of November and has been making extra effort to find the time to work on it this month. It’s actually been quite successful.

I write almost exclusively on the computer. My sentences never come out in the order I want them, and the ability to copy paste and move things around as I am writing is important to me. SO writes ON PAPER! On paper! Like it is 1952! With a fountain pen, no less! When I try to write on paper, it’s a hot mess that not even I can decipher. 

When SO writes on paper, he writes IN ORDER! Like, the writing comes to him in chronological order. This seems like magic to me. My writing comes in fits, small snippets of scenes or lines or images that I don’t even know where they go in the book, but I do know they are not in order. I mean, this man sits down and begins by writing the beginning, and then he writes what’s next and then what comes after that. And, he does all this on paper with a pen and does not erase or scratch out anything. Like, what kind of sorcery is this, sir?!

He’s also a solo writer. His writing is very much a solitary activity, and in general he is not as much of a joiner as I am. I often tease him about being the man alone at the isolated cabin writing by candlelight, which was the case when I met him. He would write me messages (sometimes send me letters ON PAPER, I mean, not to beat the dead horse, but whaaat?) about feeding the woodstove between scenes and writing without electricity and this is just mind-boggling to me.

I find it very motivating to write with people. I love the community of NaNoWriMo. I force my friends to write with me to hold me accountable. I do writing sprints with sprinting groups and generally that outside accountability is big motivation to me. 

So, when SO says he’s doing NaNo this year, for him that doesn’t mean joining the Alaska NaNo Discord and tracking his word counts on the NaNo site. Instead, it just means sitting down with his fountain pen and his paper as much as he can in November. 

My plant, which was my 10,000 word reward, being used like a folder in elementary school, making sure he doesn’t copy my answers.

How to Date a Writer

But even with all these differences we make it work. 

Writing is like a third person in our relationship, our polyamorous unicorn whom we both adore, but who we each make out with in very different ways. The mutual love of writing brings us together, and helps us understand each other.

The key to not letting it get in the way is just that we each know that the other cannot survive without writing. We try to make sure the other gets their words in in the same way that we make sure the other eats and sleeps.

So, all month we have been sitting down across the table from each other. I set up my candle and my plants all over the place and he tries to scooch them onto my half of the table without me noticing and we each get words out in our very different ways. I make my spreadsheets and count my words and write through my nonchronological poetic fog and he fills his fountain pen and writes the scene that comes next in a composition book. 

And it’s made us closer.

Do you all have people in your life who just get it? Are there people out there who understand your need for making art? 

Here are the days’ stats for the last few days: 

Progress:

Day 22 Word Count: 0

Day 23 Word Count: 0

Day 24 Word Count: 0

Day 25 Word Count: 0

Total Word Count: 28010

Where I Planned to Be: 40000

1667 words per day: 41675

I had planned on taking the 24th and 25th off because of Thanksgiving, but this week went sideways. Hoping I am going to be able to catch up some this weekend! 

The 366th Day (Leap Day 2012.)

JaclynLeave a comment

February 28th was like every other day, until midnight, when nature, reassuringly, fell apart.  It seemed that the powers-that-be drew their heads between their shoulder blades and sheepishly conceded that time was not as sane and stable as you’d been told.  The year was out of line to us sun worshippers.  Five hours, 49 minutes, and 16 seconds out of order, give or take.  And for that, every four years, except every hundred years, but not every four hundred, the calendar needed to be slapped with an extra day.

But this isn’t just any extra day.  This day boils with the possibilities of being outside of time.  Clocks and calendars hold their breath as they wait impatiently for the sun to catch up.  The planets and stars saunter slowly across the sky as alarm clocks hold in their ringing and watches repeat the same ticks over and over again.  It almost seems that the sky is teasing Earth’s timepieces, moving in slow motion and even pausing, just because it could.

It was on such a day that she came to you in red petticoats, dressed all in white save for the scarlet blooming from beneath her skirts.  She bore a crooked smile. She was daring you, even before she spoke.  Her irises seemed three-dimensional; as if her pupils were planets whose gravity had attracted rings.  She was decked out in emeralds, on fingers and toes, and somehow it never occurred to you to wonder where they had come from.  She murmured something about Irish traditions that you knew you were not meant to hear and suddenly her hair flashed to crimson.  Just as suddenly, it was black again and indistinguishable from the sky.

She takes your hand and she leads you to the river.  It is silent, as if the water has stopped flowing. It’s too black to see them, but you are almost certain that boats are rooted in the current.  And just when you mean to tell her that you’ve got no time to give her:

“Marry me.”  It was not a question, but it was a proposition.  In the thick humidity of the night, the sky paused long enough for you to wonder what that would mean.  If time would continue its mundane march through schedules.  Or maybe, just maybe, the gravity of this moment would bring the spirals of galaxies to a halt.  Maybe a leap made on a night like this would cause the rest of time to hold its breath, head cocked, suspended in a date that did not exist.

You know already what would happen if you refused.  You would owe 12 pairs of gloves.  One pair for each month in the wobbly year.  One glove for each hour in the faltering day.  They would be worn, again and again, hiding ringless hands.   And time would continue as it always had, orbiting a sun that did not seem to care.

And yet… in just this instant there seemed to be a way out of Big Ben’s repetitive clacking and the 10,000 Year Clock didn’t seem like such a bad idea.  The only movement in this moment came from the flickering of stars and the challenge in her eyes.  In this present, with the universe frozen to a temperature that was livable, the Long Now almost seemed possible.

Is that a chance you are willing to take?

Thank you to http://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/ for the photo of the 10,000 Year Clock prototype!  Hooray!

Lauren and Aaron’s Wedding Poem (Florida. Winter 2012.)

JaclynLeave a comment

Under twinkling stars in a Florida night,

brought together by an unseen hand,

two sticks dance and twist and sparks ignite

a tiny flame that needs to be fanned.

Pines and oaks gather ‘round a campfire ring

and fireflies blink and wink in the dark.

Pine needles and smiles provide kindling

and the campground sees the very first spark.

With sparkler kisses the flames ignite

and fireworks set the whole sky ablaze.

In July heat explosions burn bright

and nights can be warmer than days.

With a burst of love the fire crackles and snaps

as branches and limbs intertwine.

The flames can now relax and collapse

and the campfire can finally shine.

It gives needed warmth to St. Augustine nights

which grow cold as the winter comes near.

Under evergreeen firs dressed in Christmas lights

the light of forever is clear.

Trees lean in to lend a hand

with shimmering decorations.

A question is popped under glimmering strands

giving life to sparkling sensations.

It’s now a true fire with brilliant red embers

needing stoking and tending to rise

For this flame will last many more Decembers

with laughter alight in their eyes.

Now family and friends add logs to the fire

and fan a blaze that continues to grow.

With love and support the flames will get higher

so that everyone basks in the glow.