kathrynhoughton.com

This post is in response to some requests I’ve received recently from friends and acquaintances, requests that I’m sure to receive again. What happens is this: I get a Facebook message or email—usually from someone I haven’t spoken with in years and with whom I was never very close—asking if I will perform some editing and/or writing work. Usually, after exchanging a few messages, in which I ask about the project, it becomes clear that I am being asked to do this work for free. The one time I was offered any type of payment up front it was in the form of “I’ll buy you lunch at this beloved but very cheap local restaurant,” which I interpreted as, “In payment for the work you will do for me, I will take you out on a date.”

I always turn these requests down—politely at first, as I tend to operate under the assumption that these people honestly don’t realize how rude they are being—but if the person persists, I stop caring so much about being nice in favor of caring about being valued as a working professional in a very legitimate career field.

For those of you who don’t know, I freelance these services. I have worked freelance or contract projects on web design, writing, developmental editing, copyediting, and consulting. The lowest amount I ever charged was $15/hour for web design work while I was still a student (and even then I short changed myself fairly severely). Now I primarily write and edit for freelance work. I charge between $40 and $65 per hour for this work.

If you have never worked as a freelance writer or editor, or if you have never hired a freelance writer or editor at a fair wage, these prices may seems exorbitantly high. They aren’t. I actually tend to charge on the low- to mid-end of industry standard rates (www.writersmarket.com/assets/pdf/How_Much_Should_I_Charge.pdf). I have never had any professional client balk at these rates. In fact, the rate I pitch is usually accepted right away, without any type of negotiation, which tells me that I still could (and maybe should) make more. Read more…

I’m finally back and (mostly) decompressed from AWP, which means I’m ready to start harnessing the energy and motivation I acquired while at the conference. Most of that energy comes from guilt, and from seeing so many successful people (and wanting to be like them). I figure it’s still good though, no matter where it comes from.

But I realized something at this year’s conference, something that I think I’ve slowly been figuring out over the last year or so: I’m good at writing.

It feels odd to say that considering that the reason I started this whole MFA-business in the first place was because I knew I was good at writing. Before graduate school, I’d never once done substantial revisions on any piece of writing, be it creative or academic. My idea of revision was rereading my work, deleting extraneous commas, and changing a few of the more awkward wordings. There was only one time in all of my pre-graduate school years that I got below a B on a paper, and I was so offended by my grade that I dropped the class rather than have to figure out what I’d done wrong. But even considering that one time, I never had to pay the price for not improving my work. I got 4.0s on papers I wrote, start to finish, two hours before they were due. Even my graduate school writing sample was a rough draft.

That began to change in graduate school, of course, but in a lot of ways, it was too late. Rather than learning the value of hard work, I’d learned over many years that the good thing to do was to give only 50-80% of my effort to any given project. That way, in the event that I did fail (and for me, failing has usually meant anything that is less than perfect; seriously, ask me about the time I got grounded for getting a B+ in math), I had the ready-made excuse of having not given everything I had. That way my problem could always be defined as lack of effort rather than lack of talent.

But writing is turning out to be different. You see, I am good at it, and I’m good without trying too hard. But good isn’t enough. Good doesn’t get you to the level I want to be at. Good won’t get you a book published, won’t win you any prizes or contests. Luck might, but not being good. You have to be great. And to be great, you have to work.

People ask me sometimes how it feels to do something I love. I tell them I don’t love writing but that I love having written, that I love the power of a good story, that I love creating a good story, or a good character. These people are usually shocked to hear this attitude, but I don’t see why they should be. When writing is such a huge part of your life, when it’s another job—one that never ends—it’s hard as hell. And at least so far, it hasn’t gotten easier. Oh, I get better at it, but it’s still not any easier. It’s hard work.

And I’m finally ready to work. I’m ready to stop making excuses about why I haven’t written in two days, ten days, three weeks. I’m ready to take a chance for once in my life, to risk giving everything I have and still not being enough. But I want more than I have, and I’ll never get it sitting here talking about someday. This starts now. Wish me luck.

The AWP conference started yesterday, and the last twenty-four hours have been a whirlwind. For those who don’t know, AWP is an annual writing conference, with panels and a huge bookfair (think hundreds of tables to visit). This year there are (I believe) seven thousand writers in town for the three days of the conference.

So far it’s been good. I’ve bought more books than I probably should have (and will most likely acquire a few more before the conference ends on Saturday), and I’ve met and reconnected with some truly awesome people.

It’s also been stressful. I’ve done one previous AWP conference (2010 in Denver), and in the two years since, I apparently forgot how crazy, busy, and overwhelming it is. More than all the people and booths, however, what exhausts me is the constant need to push my introverted qualities away and pretend like I have more extroverted ones than I do. It’s a performance for me, and when that needs to go on all day, it becomes more than a bit wearing.

The problem (or, perhaps, just one of them) is that I don’t find myself very interesting, and while I genuinely like many (most? all?) of the people I meet, I can’t get rid of this lingering self-doubt that tells me they find me horribly boring. I don’t worry that people actively dislike me, but rather that, once I walk away, they don’t think of me again.

I don’t know what to say in groups. I don’t follow group dynamics. I alternate between not knowing what to say and so saying nothing and not knowing what to say and so saying the first thing that comes to mind until I’m babbling. I smile a lot, and nod when I don’t necessarily understand. I ask questions, but often struggle with articulating them. I do this even with people I know fairly well.

Usually, I prefer sitting at home to going out. I prefer solitude to groups, even when I’m feeling lonely. The one real exception is my immediate family, and they don’t understand why I’m not as comfortable with others as I am with them.

Yesterday, I found myself in conversation with someone I’d been really looking forward to seeing, but it was a group conversation, and I mostly just stood there mute. The girls on either side of me talked freely, jumped into the conversation in a way that felt natural, unplanned. Close to interruption, but in an intimate rather than rude way. I walked away from this group feeling dejected. There wasn’t any reason I should have been given a one-on-one conversational moment, but I still felt cheated for not receiving one (because, you know, I didn’t ask for one).

In my hotel room hours later, I lay staring at the dark ceiling, and realized my disappointment stemmed from wanting to feel special, important, and from the fact that I have a hard time feeling special or important of my own right. Usually those feelings only come from external forces. I think this is why I often miss school so much—I received these types of confidence boosts without having to seek them out: a good workshop, a good grade on a paper, a verbal compliment during a thesis meeting. Now, I’m floundering. Except at twenty-seven, it’s not supposed to be like that, and so I perform—or try to.

Like in my writing, I excel when given a specific task. I do perfectly well sitting behind a booth talking about a literary journal, or in front of a classroom when following a lesson plan. I feel comfortable when someone points out the flaw in my writing that I should fix, but I still struggle with finding the flaw myself. I still struggle with knowing what to do in non-scripted encounters. On the whole, the issues with my writing are improving faster than those with my personality. I suppose I should consider that a good thing.

This past weekend, my family cleaned out the basement. This meant I spent approximately 24 hours of my weekend going through boxes. As could be expected, I found some interesting stuff: my old yearbooks (signed by someone people I can’t place in my memory, by other people I’m [sadly] no longer friends with, and still other people I’m [gladly] no longer friends with), my 6th grade diary (so unbelievably embarrassing), all my old soccer cuttings (I was in the paper a lot, or at least that’s what it seems now).

As I said, most of it was interesting. There were, however, moments that were much more sad. A graduation card from a friend that I’m pretty sure I drove away through early college selfishness, a yearbook signature from someone who I didn’t even realize was a friend until she’d moved away—and a host of pictures that meant nothing to me at the time but that, nine years later, I’m able to see from a different perspective. You see, at the time, I didn’t think I meant a whole lot to anyone. I didn’t think anyone noticed me. But someone had, it turned out. In every group picture that we’re both in, this person is next to me. Leaning in. It’s so obvious now. But it’s also too late. By years. You see, we don’t even speak anymore.

And this was the point when the fiction writer in me realized that, as a writer, I have the ability to recast my past. Yes, things happened a certain way. I know that. I’m not trying to pretend they didn’t. But I have a new understanding of that past now, so in a way, I’ve recreated it. It’s like looking at the same scene from two different vantage points—the same things happen, but it all appears slightly different to the different observers.

This came up again earlier today, when I was being pushed around by someone online. This person had said some things to which I took offense. Most upsetting, he’d seemed to take credit for something in my life that had absolutely zero to do with him. Not wanting to be silenced (I’ve had enough of that over the years), I responded. But then I wondered, how can I let this go? How can I not end up shaking from anger and fear while hundreds of miles away? He won’t let me have the last word—he’s always right, you see. But then I realized, I can recreate this situation. I can refuse to acknowledge (or even notice) any response. Yes, he probably will respond, but in my reality, I finally had the last say, because that’s all I’ll allow.

I don’t exactly know where I’m going with all of this, just that these revelations have seemed—to me—to be directly related to my growing skill of a writer. I’ve noticed that I see the world differently these days, and not in a way that can be explained by the mere fact that I’m growing older, experiencing more. But I’m beginning to see that this is my life, and, to a certain extent, I can write it how I want it.

I’m writing this shortly after midnight, Friday. I’ve had hours to get to my writing today—especially since I got off work just before three. And yet twice I’ve sat down in front of the computer and had nothing come out.

There was a time when this would have freaked me out. There was a time when I would have panicked, worrying that this meant I wasn’t a “real” writer (whatever that is). In truth, I do still worry about that sometimes. I could, I know, force some writing out tonight. And there are arguments for that being the correct course of action. But instead, I’ve decided to respect my brain’s desire to not be pushed around tonight. And I’m not even going to count it as a day off. I’ve been sitting here, I’ve been thinking about things—I just haven’t committed those things to the page. A day off seems like it should be a day when you don’t feel that weight hanging over you. And I’ve had it today. Still have it. I’m just choosing to put it down for a bit, to give my brain a rest. I think that’s okay.

Instead, I’m going to work on my French and maybe do some pleasure reading. And tomorrow, I’ll be ready to write again. That, I’m not worried about.

Today I commence on 100 Days of Writing—Take Two. This time around, I’ve decided to change things up a bit. I’m giving myself 14 days off instead of 10, hoping that it helps with the quality of what I’m writing. Last time there were days when I just wrote something (usually a blog post) so that I could tick off another day. And there is something to be said for making yourself write, but 14 days off still amounts to, essentially, writing 6 days every week. This, I think, is a bit more realistic to what I have going on in my life, what with work and all (i.e., I already spend 35ish hours every week in front of the computer).

Also, this time around I’m eliminating the time and word count requirements for counting each “day” of writing. I know what a good amount of production is, and sometimes it doesn’t conform to either of those requirements I’d set for myself. Some days, for instance, I’d rather spend brainstorming and jotting down notes for a story or my book. Some days I’d rather go back and reread a particular story or passage because what’s getting me down in my writing is something I’ve seen somewhere else. Both of these things are, to me, essential steps in my writing process. I don’t need to do them often—writing is usually better for me—but some days those things are needed.

I’d like to eventually add a reading requirement to all this, too. Maybe the same requirements for writing: 6 out of 7 days each week. After all, reading (anything) is vital to improving as a writer, but I’m not ready for that yet; I have a hard enough time tracking one set of requirements.

Anyway, so this marks my first day of this next 100 (or, 114 if you want to get specific). My specific goals for this iteration are as follows: write a new book review, clean and submit a new story for publication, start and finish a new story, and work 20 days on my book.

Here I go!

After nearly three weeks away from this blog (I can’t believe it’s been that long!), I’m back. I can hear my adoring public cheering; I just need to tilt my head a certain way, and the wind has to be right.

Yeah. Anyway. My absence was unplanned and really not all that fun. For the past few months I’ve been having pain in my shoulders (first one, then the other), and just over two weeks ago it got so bad that I couldn’t lift my right arm without massive amounts of pain. This resulted in me trying to do everything with my left arm (including vacuuming, which was a time consuming disaster), and let me just say now that if I ever lose full function of my right arm, I’m doomed. Doomed!

After a week of this, I went to my wonderful physical therapist father and got the diagnosis of tendonitis (yes, at 26) caused by too much time on the computer. I took half days at work on Friday and Monday and gave myself a no-computer-at-home rule, which I am only now lifting.

The worst part about this is how it’s affected my writing. When I enacted the rule I was at day 90 in my 100 Days of Writing challenge. I had missed 9 of my 10 days and was perfectly on schedule. Now I’ve missed something like 30 days and I still haven’t hit my 100. And so, as I said I would, I’m declaring myself a 100 Days of Writing failure. I think I might start again though, once I’m sure that this whole problem isn’t going to start anew.

But other than not meeting the goal I’d set for myself, I’m also now majorly behind on various projects. Until my hiatus I was on a role with this story, and now I feel sort of stalled. Playing with things in your head is, for me, not the same.

Anyway. I’m back. Yup.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had trouble falling asleep. Not all the time—sometimes I’ll go months with no problems—but regularly enough for me to think it’s something more than stress, drinking caffeine before bed, or something like that. I’ll often lie awake for hours, sometimes not getting any real sleep all night (though that’s relatively rare). As someone who gets easily bored with sitting lying around doing nothing, it’s pretty miserable just lying there, and it tends to stress me out, and then I lose all hope of sleeping.

So I tell myself stories. I always have. Lying there, with my eyes closed, I make up stories, sometimes more like daydreams when they pertain to my life, but usually these stories don’t feature me, or anyone else I know. Sometimes they’re of the conventional sort—imagining what happens in books past the ending, or in the gaps the author left—but sometimes they’re totally unrelated to any story I already know, and sometimes (of course), I tell myself my own stories, possibilities for what will happen next in the ones I’m actively engaged in writing down. However, as I get more advanced (for lack of a better word) in my storytelling, I’ve begun to notice a disturbing trend.

Sometimes, rather than sleeping, I stay awake so I can continue the story in my head.

This does not help me get adequate sleep, as you might imagine. Still, I’m sure it’s helping me improve as a writer, as a storyteller. Now if only I could get my brain to output like this when I sit down in front of the computer.

There have been quite a few things in the works for me lately, no small number of which related to writing. Some of which, such as my coming reentry into book reviewing, were planned and, hence, expected (the book I chose won’t be published until next month, so I’m still waiting, though I actually just sent off a request for an ARC; we’ll see what happens). Others have come as more of a surprise.

First and foremost, I found out last week that I will be taking a 50% cut in my hours at work. This is not unexpected with the work cycle I’ve seen in our office, and with the State budget issues, but the accompanying 50% cut in my paycheck will be depressing. However, I’m trying to look on the bright side, to think of how much time this will give me to devote to my own projects. When I do look at the move in this light, I really can’t see it as a bad thing.

Which brings me to my next item. I received my first ever personal rejection a few weeks back. It came right in the middle of a serious dip in my writing self-esteem, and I can’t say how much those few sentences have done to re-energize me. I had submitted the story on a sort of whim, mostly because I’d found out that a fellow graduate of mine had recently had something accepted somewhere, but since then, I’ve gotten serious about polishing and submitting work. It’s been difficult to balance this with the work on my novel, but no one ever said the learning stops when you get your degree.

Along with the rejection also came an invitation to submit a guest blog post to the journal’s blog. I sent something off last night finally (there were some issues that resulted in the slow turnaround time on the project, issues that I hope I’ll be able to talk about someday relatively soon but can’t right now), and now I just wait to see if they are going to accept it as is or if they want some revisions (or something completely different). When I get a final say so, I’ll post a link here.

I also signed up for a creative writing evening class. Not because I expect the class to substitute for the classes I had at EWU but because I miss the community of writing, of sitting around a table discussing work. I’m also thinking I might start a writing group. I know a few people who might be interested. The main thing that’s holding me back (that pushed me to this class before starting something on my own) is that I’m not sure how much time and energy I want to invest in something. But now that I will only work 20 hours each week… Well, it might be the perfect time.

Of course, eventually I’ll have to find some work that pays to fill those hours, but I think that, for the time being, this arrangement might work out to be something better than it first seemed.

If you watch V, there are spoilers in this post. And for the Wheel of Time book Towers of Midnight. And Mockingjay. And now to the post.

I just finished the season finale of V, which was amazing, full of mind-blowing twists and turns, and quite a few deaths (though apparently ABC won’t confirm any of the three deaths that I saw on screen tonight, nor the one that looks to be coming at the very beginning of next season). If you don’t watch V (why don’t you watch V?), it’s interesting to note a different format to the episodes, especially after I recently finished my love affair with six seasons of LOST. With the exception of the two season finales, the episodes don’t really leave viewers with cliff hangers. They answer questions, and usually pose new ones at the beginning of new episodes, which are then addressed. The episodes feel, in many ways, like mini movies (which sometimes doesn’t work for the format, but I can appreciate it all the same for this type of show).

But what I really want to talk about is the fact that the writers for this show have no problem killing off characters. Main characters. When the main cast isn’t an ensemble like LOST. Of course, I suppose the writers could bring the characters back next season (those Vs do have some crazy healing powers, though why they would heal their enemies I have no idea), in which case I would have to eat my words, but let’s assume that these deaths really did happen. Dang. No fear of losing the audience in these writers. (As an aside here, is 5 million viewers considered enough to get a show renewed? If it gets canceled after tonight I might cry.)

One of my favorite book series, the Wheel of Time, has the opposite problem. The good guys NEVER die (and the bad guys keep getting reincarnated). Well, Hopper dies, and Birgitte has been forcibly ripped from the pattern, possibly never to be reborn, and some very minor characters have died, but that’s it. It makes the bad guys look pretty ineffective, actually.

Neither approach quite works for me. I have to suspend disbelief in the Wheel of Time (which is saying something, considering I’m already reading fantasy) because when I stop and think about it. the fact that all the Super Boys and Super Girls are still alive, not to mention the twenty or so other main characters, I really don’t buy it. But then when a series just seems to start drawing names out of a hat to see who will go (the last season of LOST felt like this at times), I get sad and depressed because, hey, I was cheering for these people. And now the story needs to find some way to fill their holes.

So now I’m trying to think of stories (television or book or whatever) that have found a balance that I find agreeable. Despite the huge death toll, I think the Hunger Games trilogy does pretty well in this respect. It would be perfect if either Prim or Finnick made it out alive; I really struggled losing them both in that last third of the book, especially with how unceremonious they both are. And…I can’t really think of another one. I mean, obviously there are hundreds of books with no deaths where that totally fits the story, but that’s not really what I’m getting at. Suggestions?