Have you ever felt completely amazed after an important meeting? Have you ever stood outside someone’s office and smiled foolishly for a while before making the first step back to the real world? And even when you start walking – you simply keep smiling to everything that appears in front of you – young mother with a child, homeless man with a one-leg-less dog, cars, red and grey, buildings and traffic lights. I got this happiness rush last week, as I finally went to Latvia and met Aivars Eipurs, in previous post mentioned as the “editor”. 

Let’s start with the fact that Aivars Eipurs (http://www.literature.lv/en/dbase/autors.php?id=222) is not an editor at all. In my inexperienced mind I had taken a “literary consultant” for an “editor”. Even though from the first consultation I got everything I was counting on, those two are quite separate things. Both, a consultant, as well as an editor, helps the writer to improve writing and content, but consultant offers the writer an objective view to the theme and possible readability, while an editor works with the language used in the text. 

However, this was the first time I was showing what I have written to someone actually able to judge. Aivars Eipurs is the only person in the whole country of Latvia, who offers free of charge consultations to young writers-to-be and is being paid by government, which gives me a reason to believe in his competency. 

The most important conclusion of this meeting is: he thinks I’m actually talented enough to make my dream come true and write a book! How well and fast this is going to go, of course, is my concern. Together we went through a part of what I have written, and Eipurs told me which ideas are good, which parts he didn’t really understand or enjoy (luckily, they were not too many). He got to know my style and personality, shared ideas and tips.

One interesting thing (between hundred others) – obviously, one of my chapters called “Misters” includes too many colorful characters and exciting patterns and it would be a waste of a good material to add this story to a book as one, small chapter between all the others (as I have mentioned earlier, my book will consist of many short stories, it won’t be a long novel).  What Aivars Eipurs suggested, is to put this chapter away for a while, and, once I’m done with the first book, I could expand the story and have another book written quite easily, because the base is already there. 

What I have already written is not enough. I need to write more in order to have enough material to go to the publishers and hand my book in. I already knew that it’s not a lot, but I kind of had imagined this amount would be enough for a thin book. Naah. Thank God, I have quite a few ideas for more chapters, more stories, more characters. Life in Amsterdam might get busy sometimes, but I promise to make book writing as a priority before things like gym (anyway I haven’t lost a pound since I started going there), money making (as much as I can afford, of course, and not live on the street) and pointless partying (damn, am I getting older?). 

I need to say enormous THANK YOU to Aivars Eipurs for getting me back on track, as I had already started to doubt myself (next post here will be exactly about that – honest and unpleasant). Thanks for getting me closer to my dream! 

Being approved feels awesome. 

Not always life treats you the way you wish. As I already predicted in the beginning of all this book writing, I had a couple of very annoying obstacles, which prevented me from moving on with my aim – to write and publish a book. But it was my and only my choice to call these obstacles not problems, but challenges! 

It all started with a Word Press error in mid-March of 2011. I just couldn’t log in into this blog to make any changes and add new posts. As soon as I entered my username and password, I got an error: 

I tried everything: I changed the password a couple of times, I tried entering the site from at least 10 different computers with almost all possible operating systems and even a couple of phones. When none of that worked, I contacted Word Press, got no answer; I joined the support forum, but to be frank, I couldn’t understand a half of the tips. So I reached out and asked for help to all the friends, who understand anything internet related. It took a while while I got the feedbacks, or was I just asking to the wrong people? However, the day was saved by my dear Dutch friend Jeroen, who calls himself (and obviously is correct about this) a social media specialist & WordPress designer (http://twitter.com/#!/jeroenpanjer). And it was only my fault that I asked him for help 5 months after the problem appeared, not immediately. Now I have my blog back and don’t have to worry anymore about losing everything I’ve done here. 

While I couldn’t write my blog, I got a lot of time to think about all the further steps I should take to get the book done. And one thing occurred to me – I need an editor! Where can a person, who’s not very well oriented in this field, get an editor? Most probably I would just try to contact every single publishing house in Latvia and ask them what to do and how. But, luckily, during my meeting with Dace Rukšāne, she mentioned an editor, who’s dealing with new writers and could help me. I wrote him an e-mail, explaining who I am, what I do and what I want from him, and he agreed to edit me, but! Not before we’ve met in person. Sounds like a reasonable request, right? Except for the fact that I currently reside in Amsterdam and he – in Riga. So there is my second big holdback. To get any further with this, I have to go to Latvia, and I have to say – that will be the most expensive one day trip I’ve ever had, but I’m ready for that. If that’s what it takes to reach my dream, I’m in! 

P.S. Just give me some time to save a little money!

Lately I’ve often been practising “Just ask!” phenomenon, which a friend of mine taught me in Turkey. The main point of this valuable lesson I received, is – people constantly are afraid to ask for what they really want. Most probably because they’ve experienced a hurtful rejection in the past and wouldn’t wish to relive the negative emotion again. But the thing is – if you frequently ask for everything you want, you will be turned down not more than once in ten times. And I am very sure that the statistics is good enough to easily forget the fiasco and keep asking!

“Just ask!” idea often leads you to the most amazing things and adventures, like asking a stranger for 1 EUR in airport of Paris can lead to spending the night on a couch with a fabulous view to the Eiffel Tower (obviously they don’t accept Turkish Liras in the airport currency exchange point, so I had to become a beggar for 5 minutes). But last week, I believe, I achieved the most incredible and valuable point of me asking something from strangers. I met with my favourite Latvian writer, Dace Rukšāne.

I simply and politely told her, who I am , what I do, and why I would love to meet her. I nicely asked if she would like to have a cup of coffee with me. And she agreed.

Dace Rukšāne is exactly what I imagined her to be: smart, attractive,  nice, with a good sense of humour, and most importantly – honest.

But now – from sucking up to a Latvian celebrity  to the real stuff, the tips she gave me.

1. Our conversation started with her surprising me with information about so called “writers’ houses”, which apparently are a couple of places around the country, where you can get rid of your husband, kids, daily chores and escape to write. You get a room, maybe some food, wi-fi, and can fully concentrate on writing in a nice country side. All of that is for free, but of course there is a BUT! You have to have published your writings or written a book (for the writers’ fond to be sure that you are not a hobo, who’s looking for a free place to stay) and also you have to apply a really, really long time before you can actually get there (might even take 2 years). So won’t work for me yet, but still – nice to know about the opportunity.

2. There are a couple of ways how to get your book published. One could be applying for a contest. Currently there is one running in Latvia ( http://rakstnieciba.lv/ ), and if they like your work, they will publish you. Another way is to find a decent editor, let him edit everything you’ve written and usually those people have connections with publishers. The third opportunity is to go straight to a publishing house and show them, what you’ve got, but to be honest, there is a really small possibility that will work, as your book hasn’t been edited yet and might contain a lot of mistakes, grammatical and stylistic.

3. The whole editing thing surprised me. In my naive inexperienced mind I had imagined that I will just keep writing and once it’s  done, if someone will accept my book as a readable (or in my wildest dreams – even enjoyable) text, I will get published.  Obviously it’s nothing like that. A writer should work together with an editor all the time. And only a bad editor will tell you that you are great and there is nothing to be changed. A good one will make you feel like a piece of shit, he will force you to delete, try again, rewrite and reorganize, so that the final outcome would be delightful as… (now imagine the most amazing thing in the world). I am not quite sure though, how I am going to survive this, I am extremely emotional and I’m not fond of the thought that someone could constantly tell me that this is wrong and that is bad. My texts are my babies, I love them how ever they have turned out.

4. From the moment you get accepted for publishing it might take even 6 months to see your book in a book store.

Dace Rukšāne was amazingly kind and offered to take a look at a couple of things I’ve written, maybe give some tips or edit my most terrifying mistakes, so I’m saying:

Enormous thank you for the amazing meeting and letting my dream about writing a book come one step closer to materializing!

My dear Latvian Literature teachers,

I’ve been a really naughty and lazy girl, when it comes to remembering anything about the things you taught me in school and university. To be honest, I remember almost nothing, except for couple of most famous writers and some of truly great stories, for instance, “Purva bridējs” by Rūdolfs Blaumanis. This particular short story showed me how incredibly dumb and weak can women be, when it comes to “real love” (and it still was “real love” after the guy cheated, gambled a lot and was an incurable alcoholic).  Unfortunately there is no English version available.

But other than that – my mind is a blank page. The thing is – in school they only teach you more than 50 years old writings; so there was no way I could learn about people who write books in Latvia nowadays. But right now this knowledge is quite essential for me. If I’m going to be a Latvian writer, I must know who are the other people, that are doing exactly the same as I am. I should know the statistics, innovations and all the news. So I am going to learn!

As all the students know – Google is the best way of finding information. But obviously not when it comes to Latvian writers and latest books. I have a reason to believe that I’m damn good at finding stuff online, but even for me it took more than 20 minutes to find a page where I could get any information on latest news in Latvian literature: http://www.literature.lv/en/index.html

Obviously the page is quite primitive and given information – shallow. So there is what I understood:  I will jump in! Anyway reading articles on the Internet won’t give me the needed information, it won’t give the feeling that I know and understand the situation of modern literature in Latvia. That’s why I have decided to attend all the meetings, seminars, lectures, book openings that will be available in Riga during the time I’m here, the whole February. This way I will meet a lot of writers, writers-to-be, critics, I will have an opportunity to talk to them and ask all the questions I want! Perfect, alive and useful information for free from real people!

Since I don’t know a thing about writing a book, I’m not used to calmly sitting and writing for many hours every day. It just doesn’t come naturally for me. I get easily distracted and bored, I often even try to find reasons not to write and do something that all the young and lazy people usually do – watch a TV show, play all the silly games on the Internet (by the way – why do we write “Internet” with the capital letter?) or invite over some friends and have a beer. But deep inside of me there is always this feeling of guilt:”I have started a project Iwillwriteabook” and I have to finish it!

So there is what I did: I fooled myself with one of the greatest motivators in the world for centuries: The Shame.

You see, in my last post I told the whole world that I will finish the book within one month. That particular post saw almost everyone I know (including my worst enemies, ex-boyfriends and their new girlfriends) plus a lot of people I haven’t met. Which means that if I won’t write the entire book in next 27 days, I will be extremely ashamed in front of everyone who knew about my promise. And that is one amazing motivator, because I have a feeling that all the people who are laughing about my dream to have written my own book, will be very, very satisfied with my failure. But I’m sorry – I’m just way too proud and sure about what I’m doing, so there is no way I can give this evil satisfaction to everyone, who’s not supporting me.

Yes, I am afraid of feeling ashamed. Some people might say, that there is no need to care about what others think about you. Sometimes, of course, it doesn’t matter, for instance, I will never care what people think about clothes I wear. But when it comes to promises I’ve made and have or haven’t kept, it’s undoubtedly important to me for people to know that I’m reliable, trustable and responsible.

By the way, the same Shame theory works on people who would like to quit smoking. If you want to get rid of this bad habit, just tell the whole world that you are quitting. Post it online, tell that to everyone you meet! In that way everyone one around you will know the fact, and every time you will feel the urge to have a cigarette, you will be afraid that your friends will judge you for not having what it takes, the courage. You won’t smoke around them, but maybe sometimes you will want that cigarette so badly that you will even be ready to run away from everyone, hide somewhere and secretly smoke, but again, two opportunities: 1) you might understand that the whole hiding thing is not worth it, and you’ll drop the idea; 2) and even if you will have that cigarette, you’ll feel extremely ashamed in front of yourself for letting down your friends, family and YOUR SELF!

I believe that every single one of us is meant to achieve something in our lives by our own strength. I believe that it’s only in your own hands to make your life better. And I believe that sitting and doing nothing means that a person does not deserve anything better.

Today life showed me wonderful opportunity to get closer to my dreams. Opportunity shaped as a plane. To be more specific – plane from Riga to Brussels, which took off from Riga airport at 14.25. I had bought a ticket to that exact plane a month ago, but today I had to let it go, and let the plane take off without me in it. Last week I broke my right hand and a surgery is needed, which means I am not going to move to the Netherlands for at least a month.

But all of this kept me thinking – what am I going to do in Latvia for another month? I am not work eligible, I am not studying at the moment, and I am pretty much tied to my apartment, because of the pain in my hand.  And then it hit me!

This is the perfect opportunity to write and actually finish my book! I still have my left hand completely capable of hitting the keyboard! I am gonna be home alone for next 30 days, which gives me the freedom of not being disturbed!

So there it is:

I WILL FINISH MY BOOK IN NEXT 30 DAYS! AND THAT’S A PROMISE!

In the four months since I have started to write a book, I’ve caught my self repeating a ritual – things I just must do before writing, so nothing would distract me and nothing/nobody would take my thoughts away from the keyboard.

The first, but not the most important thing – I want to be alone. It’s not as much about the noise, but more about not being talked to. When I write, I definitely don’t want to pay attention to someone, I don’t want to answer questions or hear a joke. One person company is possible if you keep your mouth shut!

The second, quite significant requirement is a comfortable place to sit. For a lot of writers the position in which you are able to create something truly qualitative is the most important aspect of which to think of before typing. For instance, I will never be able to write while sitting at a desk, I am a fan of the “chill position” – a comfy armchair and the net book in my lap, maybe a blanket (I am one of those never-ending “it’s so cold in here”). But sometimes people require something more interesting. The American poet Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) found her Ford driver’s seat the perfect place where to write. Another American writer, John Cheever (1912-1982), thought he was the most inspired when writing in the basement dressed only in boxer-shorts. Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) and Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) wrote standing up. So did Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) after injuring his back in a plane crash. But Junot Diaz (1968) feels like the edge of a bath tub is very inspiring.

The third thing – music. As every socially normal person, I like music. For writing purposes I had to create The Perfect Playlist, consisting of exactly 200 songs. All of them chosen so wisely that I wouldn’t have the thought of changing a song if one starts playing. The creation of such a playlist took me a bit more than 4 hours, but definitely is worth it. However, if you are too busy or lazy for investing time in creating a special writing set, our best friend internet is here to help you. There is a nice website http://stereomood.com/ which finds music, that you can listen to online according to your mood, feelings or actions, so you just have to know which of moods inspire you. There you can find almost everything, starting from “bohemien” and ending with “gangsta”.

And at last – nowadays no one writes a book with a typewriter (which would be pretty awesome though), all of us have our laptops, net books, notebooks, but there is one big problem about that – the access to the internet. A lot of people are disturbed from writing, studying or working by the mystical urge to check out the Facebook, YouTube or other our beloved sites. I have found a wonderful solution – The WriteMonkey. Program’s main idea is: the whole screen turns black, so you don’t see the task bar and your eyes see only the precious text you are writing. Your brain is not disturbed by colourful icons, nor by blinking Skype or MSN windows. Download your screen peace for free http://writemonkey.com/!

I wish you all wonderful beginning of the week! Write much, do much, love much! Merry Christmas!

I remember my self walking down the street in a warm, but cloudy day and saying to a friend ( http://www.jeroenpanjer.nl/ ) – I could write several pages every day and in about 2 months the book could be ready! He laughed at me and said – there is no way you can write every day! Back then I thought, why not? 2 pages take around 40-60 minutes, I could always find one hour in a day to write. Oh, how childish and premature that thought was!

Now let’s talk about the reality. This is going to be my first book, which means – I am not earning money by sitting and writing. Yet. And this means – I need to work in a regular job, that takes 8 hours per day, 5 days per week. After I have finished my job, I have to do all the other stuff people normally do – shopping, cleaning, appointments, maybe some sports, cooking. That takes 3-4 more hours per day. In the end of that day I am too tired to feel inspired and start to write, I rather lay down in my bed and watch some How I Met Your Mother, for instance.

Theoretically I could push myself into writing, not resting in the evening, but! It’s never going to be like this – you just sit down, take your laptop and immediately start to write without any hesitating. No, usually a person who wants to write, needs a special atmosphere – some place quiet, maybe your favourite music is quietly on, you want to feel comfortable or maybe it’s a cup of camomile tea, that keeps you writing. And all this preparation takes time, so it’s already more than 1 hour per day.

And one last thing – the weekend. Someone might think – if you can’t write during the weekdays, you can always catch up in the weekend. You don’t have to work on Saturday and Sunday, so the time for writing gets much bigger. And here the age could be a problem – I am a 21 year old, who loves partying. And nothing about that will change in next couple of years. And trust me – you can not write a book in the middle of a party!

Maybe today’s post seemed a bit negative, but all I wanted to say, is – as long as you are not a professional writer, who earns money by writing, your time for putting everything on the paper might be a bit limited. But never give up because of that! All the good ideas you’ve got won’t lose their value with the little  time you have to spend for your daily things! Just make sure they will appear on the paper at some point of your life!

For last 2 or even more weeks I can’t write the ending for the 2nd chapter of my book. I can’t write few sentences, although writing has never been a problem for me.

At first I thought I might be having a depression. Then I thought maybe I am just bad at writing. I was complaining about this to all my closest friends – I just couldn’t understand why suddenly I am not able to write any more. So recently a friend of mine showed me a video he accidentally found on Youtube. It was about so called “Writer’s Block” and ways how to overcome it. The tips in that particular video clip were really silly, and wouldn’t help anyone to get rid of this block, but the most important thing about this video is – it made me understand that something like Writer’s Block exists, and I am not the only one facing this thing, which means – I am completely normal, and I don’t have to look at the yellow pages for a psychiatrist.

The mother of all knowledge, Wikipedia, explains: “Writer’s block is a condition, associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some “blocked” writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers. It can manifest as the affected writer viewing their work as inferior or unsuitable, when in fact it could be the opposite.”

I am apologizing to those who have always known about this phenomenon. But for me (and I believe – also for thousands of other writers-to-be) it is something completely new. If I wouldn’t be trying to cook a book in my literary kitchen, I wouldn’t even care about my Writing Muse gone for some party again. And I don’t personally know any writers (in fact, I have never even spoken to a real writer), so there is no one, who could have told me about Writer’s Block.

The whole Internet is full of information about how to overcome the unpleasant “I can’t write” feeling, some more useful than other.

http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/writingroadblocks/tp/block.htm

http://www.43folders.com/2004/11/18/hack-your-way-out-of-writers-block

http://www.sff.net/People/LisaRC/help.htm

But my own experience shows that the most important step to get rid of the Writer’s Block, is to understand you have one.  And to realize that it belongs to every normal writer’s life, so you are not alone in this. However, if you are facing one, don’t panic, sh*t happens!

People will judge you. I promise. It’s just who we are. The society around you likes to gossip, it likes to make it’s stories more colourful. And what can be more enjoyable for those who tend to rumour than an acquaintance that recently has written a book? It’s even better than a story about neighbour-bastard, who is cheating on his wife:”Poor woman, she is such a lovely lady…” Someone around writing a book  means the opportunity to interpret every single written word the way you like. And make a story out of it interesting enough to be the most out-heard person in next few parties at least.

Writing and publishing a book, blog or just an article gives access to a huge amount of quite personal information to not a smaller amount of people. What ever you have written – someone will always understand it differently than you meant. And it can get really dirty. So – if you want to write a book, but you don’t want to be judged by your primary maths teacher, be careful what you write!

Let me give you an example and also for the first time lead you into a little piece of what my book will actually be about. As I am not a professional writer, I do not overrate my ability to write, so my book will consist of approximately 25 different short stories. You see – I am good at short ones, and even the thought of writing a book with one topic covering 200 pages, makes me feel bored. Anyway – I might be a great example of someone being judged because of written and published information. I am sorry, mom and dad, but I am not going to write a romantic love story or an exciting fairy tale for kids. I seriously don’t think my parents will be proud of what I have done. I will write a piece of reality. Dirty, nasty, crazy reality as it is. My plan covers a lot of topics, some of them being truly dark. For instance, does pedophilia sound bad enough? Yes, one of my stories will be exactly about that.

Getting back to the previous, the gossiping, imagine – a young woman in her early twenties is publishing information about pedophilia, detailed and emotional. Haha, I am sure – a lot of people will think that this poor girl has had some child-abuse related problems in her past, and now she wants to get back/revenge/complain. No. Nothing like that. I am simply interested in the topic. But there will always be someone, who will turn my imagination into pathetic story pretending to know the best about my own personal life. I don’t care. But if you, my dear reader, do, never write anything honest, anything interesting and anything shocking. Fairytales for children are for you then.