Two Pages a Day Challenge: Update #2

The further you get away from yourself, the more challenging it is.

Not to be in your comfort zone is great fun.

~ Benedict Cumberbatch

In September, I’m participating in the Sapphire Even Day Blogging Challenge and the Two Pages-A-Day Writing Challenge. 

I

t has been a while since I updated up on my other challenge and there is good reason for that.

I’ve been a very naughty writer.

Two pages a day.  Two stinking pages a day.  That’s it.  So I should now have 56 pages completed.  No biggie, right? 

I have eleven and a half.

Oh God!  The shame of it all!  The only thing worse would be if I’d already written two books of a trilogy and the project I’m now working on was the third and final book.  Well, I now have infinite compassion on authors who get berated for not putting a new book in a series out fast enough.

The Numbers

So where do things stand as of five o’clock yesterday?

Pages:                11 1/2

Word Count:   2,666 (I’m not counting the first 6 pages – it’s claptrap)

Topic:                Collection of Essays

At least now I have a topic!  And in this instance, I have to politely agree yet disagree with Mr. Cumberbatch.  Every time I tried to write fiction, dribble would come out.   Perhaps the problem is that the glorious dialogue and movie-like action that plays in my imagination looks flat and garish when it’s put down in black and white.  But it could also be that writing fiction is not my gift.

Essays however, I love.  Essays are my comfort zone.  And it is sort of what I already do here at La Belle.  So once I accepted that it was okay to write essays, I had a page of possible topics.

I’ll keep you “posted”!

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Have a great weekend!

Confessional Writing: A Way to Get Paid While Getting Closure

Embrace the uncomfortable fact that the first piece you write that your family hates

is likely a sign that you’ve found your voice.

~ Brian Klem

In August, I’m participating in BlogHer’s Blogging Challenge.  The theme this month is: Hot.

F

or the record, cocktails and salty snacks taken on an otherwise empty stomache do not help fuel the writerly brain.

Which means that my free-write day just turned into a hey-look-at-that-article-over-there-while-I-fall-out-of-my-desk-chair day.

Thank Papa Hemingway for re-blogs.

Yesterday I read a great article by Brian Klem in Writer’s Digest about confessional writing.  Or what he calls the “humiliation essay.”

despite what you may sometimes hear, readers across the board still want and in fact love to read personal writing—bestseller lists show millions of memoirs sold every year. Aspiring writers who desperately want to be published understand what laymen breezing through the national paper of record don’t: The chance to get paid for a big byline has been dwindling—along with newspaper and magazine pages—for a decade.

And let’s be honest: all writers want to be noticed, what to be paid for their writing.  Apparently spilling your guts is a way to get your dysfunctional foot in the door.  And it pays:

One of my students earned $4,000 for 2,000 words in Self magazine (originally pitched as “How I Cured My OCD With Prayer”) that led to a six-figure memoir deal.

It also has the side benefit of being a way to pull those skeletons out of the closet, dust them off, and give them a proper burial:

Here’s a way to turn the worst thing that ever happened to you into the most beautiful. It can be difficult to relive awkward, painful moments from your past. But as Joan Didion said, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.” In good personal essays, you don’t play victim, reciting a litany of woes. You question, challenge and reveal yourself. Tackling unresolved issues can offer emotional closure, inspiring you to delve further within yourself (and saving you money on therapy).

Memoirs are hot right now. Maybe it’s time you shared your story.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What do you think about confessional writing?  Good, bad, or indifferent?