Cobbling Together a Daily Practice

Posted in Yoga with tags , , on May 10, 2011 by karmelalejarde

Whew! Long time no post. Doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy though. Too busy, as a matter of fact, which is why this blog has gotten sadly neglected.

What have I been doing? Among other things, I have been driving (despite high gas prices) everywhere for some good yoga. So much so that in an attempt to cobble together something that resembles a daily practice, I’m having to go to three different yoga studios lately.

None of the studios are remotely close to my house. One is (thankfully) close to work. One is inside the beltway and one is aaaaalll the way in D.C. Two are Ashtanga specialists, one is Baptiste-influenced. Two have teachers I absolutely adore, and all three offer the kind of tough and tough-love yoga that speaks to me. Which ones are those?

The one closest to my office is Down Dog Yoga in Herndon, Va. I go there for Tuesday and Thursday Power Hour during lunch. This is the Baptiste-inspired studio where practice is in a heated room with the humidity pumping. The teachers are good, the sequences pretty basic and the speed moderate. I’d rate the class in the advanced-beginner level. Although the heat/humidity isn’t my favorite, and I wish we’d do more arm balancing (although I understand why we don’t; there’s only so much you can do in a one-hour class after all), the T/Th Power Hour fits my (erratic and difficult) schedule. Plus they have a shower! I can wash off the sweat and get dressed back in my workaday clothes before heading back to the office.

Ashtanga is my favorite kind of yoga and there’s only one studio in Northern Virginia that specializes in the practice. Little River Yoga in Alexandria not only has almost-daily led primary series classes but Mysore as well, which unfortunately I’ve had to stop attending because the kids have to get bundled off to school at the same exact time that Mysore is happening. So sad. I miss the studio, I miss Stair (my teacher) and, well, practice on my own just isn’t happening. Lucky for me LRY recently started Mysore on Saturdays with Stair AND Hope! Fantastic teachers both!

And then, there’s ROCKET. New favorite practice. If Ashtanga’s primary series is staid older brother Prince William, then Rocket is fun-loving, irreverent, younger brother Prince Harry. I can’t even begin to tell you how awesome this practice is. It’s got everything I love about yoga—all the basics, plus killer sequences (Prasarita A to tripod headstand to Bakasana) and lots and lots of arm-balances! Plus you don’t have to do the same sequence each and every time. My teacher mixes it up. Sometimes she even does Rocket II (shhh!).  And let’s not even talk about Rocket III, the most awesomest practice of all (more on this at a later post). And where do I go for a ride on the Rocket? Why at Ashtanga Yoga DC of course, with kick-butt teacher Peg Mulqueen! It’s a haul to drive all the way from Fairfax to DC but I make the trip because it’s so worth it.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the fantastic yoga teachers at the gym where I work—Dianne and Virginia—who I count not just as teachers but as friends. And to this very day, Virgnia’s classes are still the toughest anywhere. That’s what you get when the teacher is also a Crossfitter (down dog push-ups, anyone?). I haven’t been going to go to either one of their classes lately (mostly because of the kids’ demanding weekend schedules) and I do miss them.

So there you have it! My (somewhat) daily practice, cobbled together from different studios (I don’t practice on Mondays and Wednesdays because those are the days I teach dance and kickboxing). I count myself so very lucky to live in an area with an overabundance of studios to choose from.  Sending love to all my teachers and blessings to the studios. Thank you all.

Namaste.

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Top 10 reasons why Ashtanga is the hardest yoga practice

Posted in Yoga with tags on February 25, 2011 by karmelalejarde

I was gonna write a narrative about this very topic, but I decided to create a list instead. More to the point, no? Anyway, for all you Ashtangis out there, see if you agree with me. The top 10 reasons why Ashtanga is the most badass of all the yoga practices out there are:

  1. The tradition of early morning practice. As in 6 am or even earlier. Whose body can stretch and bend at that hour? Ashtangis, that’s who! Except for me, of course. Not only is my mind completely mush at that hour of the day, but my body is as stiff as a pencil. I can barely touch my toes, let alone go into Kurmasana.
  2. Mysore class. Not, not “my sore.” Mysore. As in the practice of individual group-practice. Say what? It’s when you perform an Ashtanga series on your own pace in a group setting. Sounds confusing? Wait til you actually walk into a Mysore class. It’s intimidating as all hell for a first-timer. Everyone seems to know what they’re doing, flowing from one pose to another all on their own without the teacher calling out any sequence. Meanwhile you can even barely remember what comes after downward facing dog in the sun salutes.
  3. Bhujapidasana to Tittibhasana to Bakasana. You’re like, bhujamawatshis?  In the primary series (a.k.a. the “starter” series in Ashtanga) there’s a pose called Bhujapidasana, or the arm-pressure pose. Depending on your own talents, this is one of the hardest poses in the primary series because (a) it’s an arm balance, (b) you’re supposed to jump into the pose, and (c) you’re supposed to exit out of the pose in a very specific way. I know, right?
  4. The length of the series. I’ve never really counted how many poses their are in the primary series but that shit is LONG. Someone actually listed out the whole thing. See how intimidating it is? The first 18 poses are the standing series, and the last 14 is the finishing sequence. Technically only the middle part is the primary series. But you’re supposed to do all three parts during your practice. And no skipping either! One of my favorite teachers said one time that each pose preps you for the next, so you shouldn’t skip.
  5. The repetition. So you’re in a 6 am Mysore class doing the primary series. Again. And again. That’s what your practice is today, which is what it was yesterday and what it will be tomorrow. Could get boring, no?
  6. The tradition of self-practice. Yep, they want you to do this on your own since each series is a set sequence. There’s no reason you can’t really, except for your own laziness, that is.
  7. The freakishly long chant. Uh huh, they expect you to memorize an eight-line chant in another language! I can barely remember what I had for breakfast this morning. But that’s not it. There’s also a CLOSING chant! That one’s only four lines long. But that’s a total of TWELVE LINES in Sanskrit!
  8. The jump-backs and jump throughs. Yeah, you were waiting for this one, weren’t you?  A lot of people hate it. Me, I actually love this aspect of the primary series. Except it ruins my pedicures.
  9. The tradition of daily practice. Yep, I said DAILY. As in they want you to do this everyday. The longest I’ve been able to do is a week. Yeah, you can call me on it, my lack of discipline.
  10. Supta Kurmasana. Yeah, right.

CLARIFICATION: I am not an Ashtanga hater! Far from it, actually. I’ve expressed my love and devotion to the practice right in this here ye blog, you dig? This post is just for all you out there wondering why Ashtanga has that reputation of being the hardest. It’s the practice that gave birth to vinyasa-style and power yoga. Plus, well, it’s just butt-kicking AWESOME.

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Is it time for tiger mama?

Posted in Gymnastics, Motherhood and Dancing with tags , on January 25, 2011 by karmelalejarde

So here’s my current dilemma. Ballerina Girl (who is 7 years old) is showing some talent in her dance classes. She’s been in ballet and tap classes since she was 3.5 years old, and this is her 2nd year at a school I’ll nickname the Dolly Dinkle Academy (DDA). The school has an excellent reputation and came highly recommended by a good friend whose daughter also attends. But despite all this, I’ve come to the conclusion that this school is definitely of the Dolly Dinkle variety. It’s way too focused on learning routines for recitals/competitions at the expense of technique, it has no dress or hair requirements (girls come to class with shoelaces sticking out and hair flowing down their backs—imagine trying to learn how to pirouette with your hair whipping your eyes and face!), and classes are too short in length for the amount of material that should be covered. Right now BG takes a 45-minute(!) ballet/tap class once a week, and a 45-minute class for her dance team.

I’ve kept her at this school because she’s a serious gymnast (she trains 4 hours per week) and her dancing at this point has merely been a way to supplement her gymnastics training. I didn’t want her to go to a serious dance school because her gymnastics training was serious enough. For her dancing, I wanted her to have fun, dance to popular music, and not be required to attend so many classes so many days a week.

In this respect, the DDA has delivered. BG can wear anything she wants, she has good friends in the class and in the dance team, and she’s having loads of fun.

So what’s the problem, you ask? More and more, I’ve come to feel that I’m throwing my money out the door. I mean, this school just does not seem to teach any actual technique. The final straw was the Christmas recital when I got to see the older (middle and high-school aged) students perform. In a word—they were awful. Awkward, graceless, heavy. Even the smallest and most lithe of the dancers landed her grande jetés with a thud. They showed no épaulement, no carriage, no turnout, no extension, crooked knees, unpointed toes and wobbly pirouettes. And I know where all that bad form came from—from the faculty, whom week after week I see with my own eyes merely teaching routines without the accompanying proper technique.

So here’s the idea I’ve begun toying with. In my area, I have (count ‘em) three topnotch ballet schools that consistently produce professional dancers. Their faculties are all ex-pros. They produce Nutcrackers every Christmas (the first sign that a school is a non-DDA). But, as you all know, these types of schools have much more rigorous time requirements than the DDA. And they’re a lot more serious too. No dancing to the soundtrack of High School Musical.

I’ve attempted to list the pros/cons of transferring BG to one of the “serious” schools:

PROS:
1. Better instruction.
2. Higher quality performances.

CONS:
1. More serious (less fun) environment.
2. More expensive.
3. More rigorous training (harder on the body).
4. Greater time commitment.

So if I just play the numbers, I should let BG stay put at the DDA, right? Count also the fact that she has declared loudly and enthusiastically, “Mommy, I love dance team!” That’s worth about three points there. But what about the poor (or more like “nonexistent”) dance technique she’s learning and will continue to learn as she gets older? What about all this focus on competing vs. performing?

Ah, it’s times like these when I feel like a Tiger Mama. It’s a classic dowhatsbest vs. letthemhavefun dilemma. Anyone have any opinions for me? (At this point, BG’s focus continues to be gymnastics, but who knows how long that will last?)

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Yoga and injuries

Posted in Fitness, Medical, Yoga with tags , , , on January 20, 2011 by karmelalejarde

I’m injured, and yes, yoga caused it. At first I was in denial. Sure I could admit that yoga contributed to the injury, but I thought it was more a combination of the yoga plus the kickboxing plus the grand battements plus a possible lack of proper hydration (dries out the joints).

But no. It’s the yoga. Nothing else I’ve done in my life—not ballet, not kickboxing—has ever caused this much pain. Plus the timeline is unmistakable.

I upped my yoga practice around March of last year. In April, the first twinges of my butt pain started, but nothing I couldn’t handle. It was more twinge than actual pain, right where the cheek ended and my thigh started on the left side. I was convinced it would heal on its own. My chiropractor, who was treating me for an unrelated injury, worked on it some, but it didn’t go away. Then I discovered Ashtanga right around April. The primary series is rife with forward bends and twists. The pain began to steadily intensify after that, but it was so incremental that I could always power through it. By springtime, sitting started to hurt. So I went to a highly-recommended massage therapist and acupuncturist, convinced that a combination of the two alternative therapies would erase the pain for good. They worked on me throughout the summer and early fall, and while I received relief, it was temporary at best and the pain came roaring back, each time more acute than ever.

Meanwhile, I continued practicing yoga. Matter of fact, I was getting better, stronger, more stretchy. I was rockin the headstands and arm balances. While I couldn’t put my forehead all the way down on the left side in the Janu Sirsasanas, I could on the right side. So I wasn’t that worried yet. But the pain was still continuing to worsen, so finally, I decided to go see a proper doctor.

Before you yell at me for not having gone to a doc early on in my injury, I need to disclose my love/hate relationship with the medical establishment. Let’s just say my family has had a long and painful history with all things western medicine-related and let’s leave it at that, but this was why I was wary about seeing an M.D. Luckily a colleague was currently undergoing pain treatments for multiple injuries to her spine and she told me about her docs who believed not only in healing the injury (as opposed to simply making the pain go away with narcotics and drugs), but that they also specialized in non-surgical treatments. Yay! Docs after my own heart.

So I went to go see them. Initial diagnosis: ischial tuberosity, which is a fancy medical term for “pain in butt.” Possible cause: lack of proper hydration, causing the tendons and ligaments to dry up over time. They first gave me two cortisone shots, one on each butt cheek. The pain relief was immediate, but alas, temporary. So they decided to let me undergo something called prolotherapy, which involves shooting me up with a dextrose solution deep into the areas of pain to promote inflammation and letting my body’s natural healing mechanisms heal the new inflammation. Yep, you guessed it—more pain on top of pain. But this treatment method is designed to heal instead of hide the pain.

The bad news: because this treatment is designed to heal, the process is long-term and I will most likely not improve until after multiple treatments that are not covered by insurance months and months from now.

The good news: I finally have a firm diagnosis on the cause: yoga. Okay, this isn’t “good” news, but it’s always a relief to find out what’s causing your body’s malfunction. And no, my doc didn’t actually say “yoga.” What he said was “chronic misalignment of your sacroiliac joint,” meaning my SI joint slips out of place all the time now. Every time he sees me, it’s been out of whack.

I wondered as to what could be causing this chronic misalignment so off to the Interwebs I went. And lo, look what I found! Says right here there are four causes of SI pain: traumatic, biomechanical, hormonal and joint inflammatory disease. And under “biomechanical,” this is what it says:

Pain due to biomechanical injuries will usually come on over a period of time and often with increased activity or a change in occupation/sport etc. The most common biomechanical problems include:

  • Leg length discrepancy
  • Overpronation
  • ‘Twisted pelvis’
  • Muscle imbalances

“Over a period of time?” “With increased activity?” A “change in occupation/sport?”

That could only mean one thing: my yoga practice.

If and when my docs manage to correct/heal my ischial tuberosity and SI pain, I don’t know what this will mean for continuing my practice since I don’t know specifically what ABOUT my practice is causing my SI joint to get misaligned. Is it the twists? The hyper-forward bending? Is it a specific asana?

Or maybe (and I cringe as I’m about to type this), I should quit practicing altogether. (No!)

Hubby went to the doc with me this morning and he learned how to slip my SI joint back in place. So maybe that’s all it will take for a pain-free existence—for someone to knock the joint back in place on a daily basis. Or maybe, on the other extreme, I will need to stop practicing altogether (oh the humanity!).

But hopefully I can find some kind of middle ground that will make yoga still accessible while remaining injury and pain-free. In the meantime, I’m off the prolo and moving on to something called Plasma-rich Platelet (PRP) therapy. Let’s hope it works. But what to do about yoga in the meantime?

On the one hand, the injury has greatly humbled me. I used to think nothing of my ability to fold forward and touch my forehead to my knees. Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana was a breeze. I took my stretchiness for granted, my body for granted.

Now, I struggle through the most basic of poses. Padahasthasana with straight knees has become impossible. Now when I look around the room whenever we’re doing a what-used-to-be-an-easy asana that I’m struggling through, and I see my fellow participants breezing through it, I feel frustration. But I know I can’t force it. THAT would be the worst thing I can do.

It’s a good thing yoga is not a competitive sport. Far from it actually—all my teachers emphasize the breath first, asana a faaaaar second. They all tell me to listen to my body, do only what’s accessible. And most of all, they all tell me to focus on myself and no one else.

Now more than ever, I need to internalize their teachings deep into my being and live it off the mat. Maybe if I’m successful, this—plus the medical treatments—are what will finally get me over the injuries.

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The torture of early morning practice

Posted in Yoga with tags , on January 19, 2011 by karmelalejarde

Ashtanga yoga is my favorite yoga practice bar none. Lots of things to love about it—the sequence of asanas, the length, the variety, the challenge of it all.  I love the comprehensiveness of the practice (forward bends! backbends! binds! leg balances! arm balances! headstands! cardio!) and the community of ashtangis in my area. However, there is one aspect of Ashtanga yoga I find particularly unfortunate: the early morning practice, a.k.a. “crack-of-dawn” practice or COD.

What does COD practice entail and how early are we talking about, you ask? Depends on what you wanna do. If I wanna catch a mysore class, my studio begins at 6:30 am, but there are others in the area that start as early as 5:30 am. If I wanna practice in my living room, I have to begin around 4:45 am or so and stop by 6:00 am so I have time to perform the cook/fix lunches/feed-and-clothe kids/get-them-out-the-door daily waltz, not to mention get myself ready for work.

I know that COD practice is more tradition than hard-and-fast rule. I know I can practice anytime I want, as much or as little as I want. But the older I get, the more I respect traditions. Must have something to do with the aging process, as in traditions are old and should be respected, just like elderly ol’ me. And it isn’t that I have trouble getting out of bed (I don’t) or the fact that my energy levels aren’t where I want them to be during that time of day. If I practice often enough, I know it would be just a matter of time before my circadian rhythms acclimated to COD.

What I don’t like about COD practice is that during that time of day, I have no flexibility at all. None, zero, zilch. My body is so stiff I can barely touch my knees in a forward bend, let alone go into a full uttanasana (which I can do any other time of day). One time I posted this very complaint on my Facebook page, to which one of my teachers replied, “But that time of day is when your body is the most honest.”

Seriously, I appreciate that. I know I should listen to my body, and if it’s telling me, by every pop and twinge and outright pain that I shouldn’t be doing a certain asana, then I listen. But is it telling me to stop because I’m still stiff from having just woken up, or because I have no business doing that particular asana? See, there’s a difference, right? How do you recognize one vs. the other?

One last point: in the wintertime, practicing in the morning becomes doubly hard because of the temps. I can’t heat up my living room to my desired yoga-practice temperature of 85 degrees. Anything lower than that (and my house is usually a cooler-but-still-comfy 67 degrees) risks pulled muscles. One more reason I like practicing at night, after my house has been sufficiently warmed up by kids jumping and running and crashing into furniture.

Tonight, I’m teaching my usual back-to-back 30 minute Core class and 1 hour Kickboxing. You’d think I’d have no energy to do anything else after that but drive home and collapse, right? But right after my Kickboxing class is when I’ve come to love practicing the full primary series. (Shhh…I know it’s a moon day and shouldn’t be practicing, but I have Prolo again tomorrow and will be benched for the next four days yet again.) And I’m really, really looking forward to it. What did another teacher say? Ah yes, the primary series is “meditation in motion.”

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Realistic resolutions

Posted in Life on January 13, 2011 by karmelalejarde

I’ve always avoided making new year’s resolutions because, well, I break em, usually by the end of January, and then I give up altogether. However, this year, I really, really need to make—and keep—a few resolutions. These things aren’t necessarily New Year’s Resolutions as much as they’re Things That Need to Permanently Change in Karmela’s Life. And what better time to change them than, well, now? It just so happens to fall during the first of the year. Failure is not an option. Change we can believe in. Okay, enough with the clichés/slogans. What are these things that need changing?

  1. Karmela needs to keep better track of her shit. And by “shit,” I mean not my marbles, but my stuff. I am careless with my personal belongings, have been ever since I was a kid. My mother, may she rest in peace, always called me by that ugly-sounding Tagalog word, burara, which literally means,  ”someone who can’t keep track of her shit.” No shit, mom. But I hear her. This has got to stop. Permanently. When I was a kid/teenager/young adult, I didn’t have that many valuable things. Now, I sorta kinda do. I have electronic gadgets, car/house keys, leather accessories, real jewelry. Did I mention electronic gadgets? In 2010, I lost my 64MB iPod classic and my key ring (with a key chain from Kitson).
  2. Karmela needs to closely read every piece of paper that comes home from school. No more cursory glancing at the emails and newsletters from the kids’ teachers. Lots of things going on and I need to be on top of it.
  3. Karmela needs to stop injuring herself. 2010 was the year I finally got it into my noggin that I’m no longer 23. I can no longer start working out full-tilt without warming up first, I need to nurse an injury as soon as it happens, and when I do get injured, my body doesn’t bounce back like it used to. But most of all, I just need to listen to my body and quit pushing it beyond its limits. Ego is a factor here; so is denial. Gotta expunge the two out of my system for good.

That’s it, see?  Only three that happen to be completely realistic and achievable. But achieving will be a long-term journey, which means I also have to practice zen-like patience and accept the fact that I’ll slip here and there. But that doesn’t mean I get to quit altogether when I slip. A friend reminded me yesterday of that great Yoda quote:  ”Do or do not. There is no try.”

So there’s resolution #4: not to “try” #1-3, but to “do.”

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You know you’re living in 2011 when…

Posted in Life on January 12, 2011 by karmelalejarde

1. You accidentally enter your PIN into the microwave.
2. You text the grocery list to your husband’s cell.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
4. You GoogleTalk with the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they’re not on Facebook.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
7. Every commercial on television has the Facebook and Twitter logo on the bottom of the screen.
8. Leaving the house without your cell, which you didn’t even have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go get it.
9. You Tweet about every car accident and delay you encounter on your commute. Hey, it’s a public service!
10. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee. (Yeah, I’m talking to you, Mom2Amara!)
11.  You get a flat tire and your first reaction is to take a photo of the tire (with your cell of course) and post it on Facebook.
12. You’re reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you’re already thinking about re-tweeting this post.

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Hello 2011

Posted in Fitness, Life on January 10, 2011 by karmelalejarde

How can it be that I haven’t blogged here in more than three months now?  I’ve been away for so long my WordPress dashboard looks a teeny bit different. So here I am, back in action (or inaction, as I’ll be discussing momentarily), and what better way to start off the New Year than by doing the exact same thing every other blogger in the universe is doing right now?

Yep, you got it: listing my New Year’s Resolutions. Except I’m going to refine mine and list my fitness resolutions instead. Mine however aren’t the usual “work out more” and “hit the gym X times a week” resolutions. They’re more on the mindful side because 2010 was definitely an eye-opening year for me as far as my health was concerned. So I’ve jotted down the following to see if I can make 2011 a better year for me:

  1. To heal. 2010 was the Year of the Injury, specifically the injury to my glutes that the doctors have now diagnosed as an Ischial Tuberosity (literally a “pain in the ass”). The injury began sometime around March and has only worsened as the year wore on. For 2011, the first order of the day will be to heal. This will be accomplished using a combination of alternative treatments (prolotherapy, possibly PRP as well) and following a strict regimen of rest, hydration and exercise. So using those last three as my guides, I also resolve…
  2. To rest. 2010 was also the Year of Yoga for Karmela. Although I’ve been practicing on and off since 2001, this year was the year I discovered Ashtanga and various forms of power yoga (e.g., Baptiste and Rocket). In a nutshell, I overdid it. And continued to overdo even as the pain intensified. So I saw my practice devolve from the super-stretchified version where I could do a full forehead-to-knees Uttanasana to barely being able to touch my toes. Still, I refused to rest. I kept at it. So for 2011, I will either take days off from yoga or practice a more restorative version a day or two during the week.
  3. To hydrate. The cause of my injury absolutely baffled me because I’ve always been super-flexible, especially in the hamstrings department. In dance and martial arts classes I could always extend my leg perfectly straight above my head. So this injury made no sense to me. After seeing numerous alternative practitioners (e.g., chiropractor, physical therapist, acupuncturist), I finally broke down and saw an M.D. who told me, when I asked him what could have possibly caused my injury, that perhaps it was my lack of proper hydration. Over the years, the dryness in the muscles sets in and causes these tiny tears which what may have caused the tightness, and eventual tears, in my hammies. Made perfect sense to me. So 2011 will be, in addition to other things, the Year of Hydration.
  4. To listen to my body. Yep, I’m no longer 22. My body is more susceptible to injuries and takes longer to heal. I need to accept the fact that I will need to (a) warm-up before working out, (b) learn to back off when something doesn’t quite feel right, and (c) perform a recovery routine after working out (i.e., stretching, savasana, etc). Wish me luck on 4.b.
  5. To sleep. Since upping my yoga practice, I’ve noticed a considerable improvement in the way I sleep, as in, I actually get sleepy. Yes, goodbye, insomnia! Problem is, I’m so used to not sleeping that even when I feel sleepy, I resist. I get online or read or watch TV. Must. Resist. Urge. I must give in to the sleepies and just, well, sleep already.
  6. To enjoy the outdoors more. More of a lifestyle goal than a fitness goal, this will however entail fitness-related activities such as biking or hiking or swimming. And an ancillary goal: don’t let the shitty weather stop me from spending some time outdoors, even if it’s just fifteen minutes shoveling snow.

That’s it! Six things that are totally doable and achievable.  Of course, this doesn’t count my other non-fitness resolutions, which I may or may not discuss in this blog.  Wish me luck on the six above.

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Ten Ways To (Seriously) Improve Your Writing (via Broadside)

Posted in Writing on October 1, 2010 by karmelalejarde

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Ten Ways To (Seriously) Improve Your Writing It’s commonly said, (among writers who do it for their living), that blood to a surgeon is like rejection to a writer — a necessary part of every day’s work. Whether a surgeon likes blood is irrelevant. Do professional writers — and ambitious amateurs — enjoy rejection? Irrelevant. It’s not a game for d … Read More

via Broadside

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On Writing: A Big Honking Distraction

Posted in Writing on September 28, 2010 by karmelalejarde

The other day, a friend who is working on her first novel asked me the million-dollar question: how does one get published?

Before I answered her, I asked how far along she was in her story. Eighty pages, she answered. A good start, I told her, but I was going to withhold answering her question until she reached 200 pages. The rest of our conversation went kinda like this:

HER: Why?
ME: The business of publishing (navigating it) is one of the biggest distractions to a writer. Takes away from the actual writing.
HER: That rings true.
ME: I’ll introduce you to this maddening world at 200 pages. Just write.
HER: Deal.

As a working writer, it is of course impossible to ignore the business aspects of this universe. But whereas in Phase 1 (which is what I’m calling 2005-09 of my writing career) I focused way too much on finding an agent, going to conferences, entering writing competitions, and reading about the biz, Phase 2 will simply be all about The Writing. And let the chips fall where they may. We’ll see if this method will be more effective.

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