Modifications

I don’t even know how to begin this post.

Well, that’s not exactly true.  I could post a picture of my latest cocktail that inspired all this post.  So, yeah, let’s do that.

The story behind this drink: this is a Ginger Boulevard Manhattan…sort of.  With modifications.  Read on, and you’ll see what I mean.

A friend told me that he stopped by my blog and noticed that I’d devolved into nothing more than cakes and cocktail recipes.  As in . . . why am I bothering with your blog, Ilsa, since you have nothing important to say?

Well, I kind of responded by telling him that I *didn’t* have anything important to say; that making cakes and cocktails are the things I seem able to finish these days, and there’s nothing “new” coming down the pike other than what I’ve been struggling to write now for the last month.  (Actually, I started a new book in October-finally-and had some fun with it but not nearly enough and then stopped after I thought I’d gotten to a good point in the book and at the place where I wanted to stop because I then flew out to Oregon for a workshop.  While at the workshop, though–and as so often happens with me when I step away from a book–I see all the problems and things that need work and changing, and so for the last few weeks, I’ve been retooling the whole damn thing from the beginning.)

Was that a bad way to go?  As it turns out . . . yes and no.  For a while there, I actually had some fun and thought that the changes were right.  I still think the changes are right, but then I got all bogged down because I changed things so much that new and nifty ideas started occurring to me and then I started thinking, but shit, I’ve already OUTLINED this damn thing and now I’m going off in this whole other direction…

At which point, I left for Thanksgiving.

I will be frank.  I despise Thanksgiving when it’s not at my house.  I don’t like the wasted time or travel.  Simple as that.  I like the camaraderie; I enjoy the food.  I even enjoy seeing other people, most of whom are relatives I see only once in a blue moon.

But I really, really hate Thanksgiving.  With a frigging passion.  Because it means travel and it ticks me off that NO ONE has EVER traveled to see me even when I hosted Thanksgiving at my house a million times when I lived in Virginia.  My folks would come.  My in-laws–bless their hearts–they came once.  But no one else, and it ticks me off.

It REALLY ticked me off that no one would ever consider coming to Wisconsin.  Ever.  Never.  Now, Passover . . . once or twice.  But never Thanksgiving, and why?  Because Wisconsin wasn’t/isn’t interesting enough.

So I should travel.

Which I hate.

Anyway, so I traveled to NY.  It was fine.  I mean, it was nice to see relatives and one whom I’ll probably not see again for various reasons.  (Though how anyone can say this person isn’t sharp…)  I did enjoy hanging with my nephews in particular and their dad.  I loved seeing my kids, both of whom have vowed never to set foot in Alabama.  (Can’t say I really blame them.)  And the husband had fun; he loves New York.

Me, I hate cites.  So hating to travel and traveling to a city…a double whammy.

Now, I love the husband, I really do.  If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have agreed to leave Wisconsin.  But I noticed that I simply can’t seem to enjoy myself much anymore.  I can’t relax; I get more impatient than I used to; I got grumpy with one of my kids, whom I hardly ever see!

And why?

Because a damn scene in the book wasn’t going well.  Because I brought work along hoping to get to the end of at least ONE piece that has been nagging at me for days.

Did I?  Yes: this morning.  Finally found some peace and quiet in a hotel lobby and a decent cup of coffee.

But this got me to thinking about books, my work, the blog, everything.

More than once, I’ve wondered what this blog is for.  Is it for me?  Should it be fun?  I hear so many writers talk about how much they hate blogging (and so most of those guys don’t do it).

Me, I go back and forth.  On the one hand, a website is a place for me to put all the information anyone would ever need to find me–and my fans do.  So that’s good.

But I also feel that a website is a little sad if it doesn’t have something new, whether it’s pictures, an article, a brief description of the day, whatever.

Now, since I’ve got nothing new coming down the pike–and since I measure my self-worth that way (I really do)–my website and blog have become this bane of my existence: yet another testament to how worthless I am as a writer.

How I have failed and continue to fail.

My goodness, how did I get there/here?

Beats me.  But if I had to guess, I’d say it’s part of the same slow process of self-annihilation that began when the husband decided he hated what he was doing and needed a change and then that I should come along for his ride.

Is that a touch of bitterness there?  Still?  Shit, yes.  I can’t seem to shake that.  Perhaps it’s that I don’t want to.  I do blame him.  I am not comfortable here.  This is not my home.  It might become so, but it’s not yet.  Yeah, yeah, It’s not fair, but there it is.

There’s also no one I can really talk to about that either.  I can’t put the kids in the middle; one very empathetic child said she didn’t know how to respond because she knew that her father was happier now, but that her mom was unhappy.  And no kid should have to be in the middle–and this also validates what I have always counseled parents: you are not your child’s friend.  Your job is to be a parent and then become obsolete and stand aside.

You can’t talk to any friends about this because they don’t know how to respond either.  The ones who know you both are caught; the ones who know only you wish you’d snap out of it already.

Well, that does make two of us.

In the middle of all this, I happened to hang with another writer for a while, a very seasoned pro who also blogs routinely and is incredibly prolific and so makes me feel like an ear mite (though that’s not his fault; that’s all me).  But I took a look at his website/blog and, yeah, since he’s indie-pub, he’s always got something new from his vast backlist to bring out and/or has some new novel he’s knocked off.  (We’ll get into novel lengths a different time, but I will say this: I’m sorry, but I do think it’s a cheat to put out something that’s 150-250 pages long and call that a novel. I just do.  Call it being infected with New York-think, but I just do.  Nevertheless, the guy’s selling, so I guess people are looking at the writing and not the length.  Just going to show that I know nothing.)

Anyway, his blog is interesting because it’s basically just a recitation of his day: what he did, how many words he got written, anything interesting he came across, and then, maybe, some writerly stuff.

Which got me thinking about modifications to my own blog, my writing style, my life–because if I don’t do something DRASTIC or at least different, I can see myself spinning around like a gerbil on a wheel to nowhere for the foreseeable future.

And that got me around to being brave enough to make modifications with an existing recipe for a cocktail.

We went to a pretty nice place one evening, and they had these interesting cocktails, one of which is loosely based on the Ginger Boulevard above.  Theirs had Amaro and the recipe I purloined for mine didn’t.  But I thought…heck, I know enough now, just try a few modifications, see what happens.

So I took the basic recipe for a Ginger Boulevard and modified it to include what I remembered from the ingredients I’d read at the restaurant: bourbon, amaro (Montenegro), sweet vermouth, orange bitters, ginger liqueur.  But I opted to keep the Grand Marnier that the restaurant omitted and then diviied up the vermouth and Montenegro.  Why?  Because Montenegro is strong; vermouth is quite sweet and so is Grand Marnier, and I didn’t want any one ingredient to overpower any other.  Plus, I went for Carpano Antiqua for the sweet vermouth, which is quite good…but can also be a tad strong.

Don’t ask me to explain, really. It’s a judgement call.

Well, the cocktail turned out great.  In fact, the husband thinks it’s better than the one we had at the restaurant.

What does this mean?  What does it add up to?  How does it impact what I think I ought to do at this point?

Gosh, I wish I knew.

I think, though, that I need to a take a page from my cocktail playbook: I am not a bartender. I do not make up drinks.  But I do understand better now how drinks are constructed than I did a year ago, and well enough to try a few modifications.

Which brings me to the blog.

Time to make some changes, and as always, it is best to try something that scares me a little.  Heck, it’s how I chose my analyst.  (No kidding: I went for the woman who freaked me out because I thought I wouldn’t be able to charm my way past her.  Wow, what a long three years.  But she was good; she really was.)

My friend chooses to kind of write in the open: talk about his day, then say how many words he got done, and then put down anything else that strikes his fancy as being worthwhile.

I can’t promise to do that; I’m not a seasoned pro who’s been in the biz for 30 years, and I think a lot of what I think is outdated and wrong.

But it might be good for me to start to write out loud.  Tell you guys what I did; share anything interesting I came across; put down a word count for the day.  (I will be honest: word counts make me cringe.  They make me crazy.  I think I sometimes write eighty bad words for every good one.  I’m not kidding.  There are days when I’ll go back to what I did the day before, even if we’re talking 10-12 pages, and kill it all.)

Will this work for me?  I don’t know; it might be nice if I knew what I was trying to accomplish.  Maybe it’s no more complicated than I’m keeping track of my day for myself: seeing what gets in my way, seeing what works, noting when I have a good day writing–and when I have fun.  Fun has been in short supply.

So…okay, I wrote today.  I don’t know how many words because I didn’t think to keep track until this evening.  So I guess the experiment starts tomorrow.  But I did manage to get to the end of the scene I’ve been struggling with all week.

Oh, and where does that put me in terms of pages?  (I could open the document and look at how many words, but I’m too lazy and since I only remember the page number I ended on, that will have to do.)  So I’m at 153 pages.

I will refrain from making a value judgment.

What else did I do today?  Went to a football game; watched Tennessee lose; got very wet heading back to the car; drove for two hours to get home; saw the cats who wondered if I’d died; spoke to my family. Did laundry immediately upon my return.

Then made a Ginger Boulevard Manhattan, modified.

And this blog post.

Let’s see how this goes.