Category: Writing and Not Writing

Running Away

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn Fiction, Intervals, My Poetry, Poetry, Writing and Not Writing, Your Poetry1 Comment

shellCurrently, running away might be exactly what I could be accused of doing.  I am at our small beach house where I have been most of this month.  I have been coming here every year for the past 4 summers, during the month of June, in order to write and recharge.

Some years have been more successful than others in the area of writing, but usually I have been able to rest well, even if I have not been able to write well while here.  This year, oddly, I have not been able to rest quite as well.  One factor has been the weather.  We have had storms rolling in at night and these tempests have managed to intrude on my rest in two ways.  The first way is the most obvious: if I am sleeping, and if the storm is close enough, it wakes me.  The second way is both more appealing and less preferable at the same time:  the storm comes before I am asleep and so I open the blinds or go out onto the porch and become a spectator.  The thrill of watching a good storm, frankly, makes it difficult to settle down enough to later go to sleep.  I simply don’t want to sleep afterwards.

However, for me to blame my inability to rest completely on these acts of God is not the whole story.  Continue reading “Running Away” →

“What Fresh Hell is This?”

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn Fiction, Intervals, Writing and Not Writing2 Comments

valentineI wonder if Ms. Parker ever faced the dilemma I am facing this week.  In the last two days, I have written over 20 pages of, I believe, a short story.  However, based on the following facts, I hesitate to use the label “short story:”  this particular story does not seem to want to end; the characters in this story have taken up permanent residence in my every waking minute; the last time I was so inhabited by a character, I ended up writing a novella!

What’s the problem? you may well ask.  Let me list the problems in order of my level of concern:

Problem 1: This particular story is unlike anything I have ever written.  It appears to be a “romance?”  It’s a little steamy, but it may just be trashy!  I have no experience writing in this genre.  For all I know, the descriptions of the close encounters are cliche, the circumstances unlikely, and the plot just plain silly (although, I have to admit, I am liking the dialogue so far).  Continue reading ““What Fresh Hell is This?”” →

Down Time

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn Intervals, My Poetry, Writing and Not Writing2 Comments

img_1205Yesterday, I took to my bed and stayed there.  Today, I was ready to throw off the mantle of exhaustion, walk out into the sunshine and accomplish something…anything.  Sadly, there is no sunshine today, so I am not out … I am in.  Inside this house, inside the mundane, in my “to do” list … in, in, in.

April is, perhaps, for me one of the most challenging months of the year.  My father died in April of 1990.  Just as the daffodils bloom and my tulips, the ones that were not supposed to be perennial in this climate, are about to open … just as the dogwoods are painting their color and fragility onto the sky’s canvas, just as nature is greening itself and getting its “lush” on, I am thinking of death.  Well, this is Lent.  Spring.  The dualities I am pondering are more complicated and mysterious than I can describe here.  My body, more than my mind, grieves (by shutting down) the loss of a man I loved and, at times, hated; a man whom I forgave long ago, yet whose memory can sometimes still anger me.  Simultaneously, my mind is at war with this body, my body, over which I have limited control.  It grieves as it will.  It ages as it will.  Flowers bloom and die regardless of whether I have paid enough appreciative attention to them, and if I have not, this year’s chance is gone.    Recently, I learned that a former classmate of mine has died.  I did not know him well.  I will not know him now.  Continue reading “Down Time” →

Another New Year

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn Fiction, My Poetry, Writing and Not Writing, Your Poetry2 Comments

I suppose that most of us have goals.  My goals as a writer tend to be mnemonic:  I will finish the novel.  I will publish another poetry chapbook.  I will submit my work to literary magazines more frequently.  Perhaps some of you share the same or a similar mantra.

Often, I will be in the second half of the year, however, before I realize that I have interrupted myself so frequently with a lapse of discipline, or my “real” life as a wife and mother, or, yes, even my own creative spirit (I can get enthusiastic about so many different projects and collaborations!), that I have not taken all the necessary steps to ensure that my writing goals will be met by a time certain.  It is not that I am failing to accomplish things.  I am just not always accomplishing those things I set out to accomplish. Continue reading “Another New Year” →

I’ve Been Around The Block a Time or Two

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn Fiction, Writing and Not WritingLeave a comment

Writer’s block, that is.  “Experiencing ‘writer’s block,'” however, is an overused phrase, in my opinion.  I frequently experience the frustration of not being able to make the words fit together the way I want them to fit together.  I am, in fact, having this experience right now.  I should be writing my 5 daily pages of the novel on which I’m currently working, but on Friday, when I last worked on said novel, my use of the “backspace” key on my keyboard surely broke some kind of record.  I got my daily pages written, but it was a grueling afternoon.  Some days are just like that.  That kind of struggle isn’t what I call “writer’s block.”  Continue reading “I’ve Been Around The Block a Time or Two” →