Elizabeth Van Zandt's Blog

My routine doesn't vary much. Except on Thursdays, of course. It's the last "work" day of the week for me, I get to sleep in as late as I want and knock off early if I want to. I always look forward to Thursday precisely because it is the one day out of the week I can sleep as late as I want, unaffected by my boyfriend's lack of need for sleep. Seriously... who gets five hours and is perfectly fine? Of course, because I get to sleep in as late as I want, I usually end up waking up earlier than other days. Be it the dogs walking around, people making too much noise in the area, or I simply can't sleep anymore, it never works out for me.

This morning was no exception to the "I get to sleep in but I won't" rule. Truth be told, I'm a little grumpy about it. I don't have anything against mornings, but I'm usually pretty grumpy for about 10 minutes after I wake up. (I don't drink coffee, either.)

So I get up and do my thing like I usually do. You know, bathroom, tea, turn my computer on. I walk into the kitchen to get said tea and what happens? I almost step on this big, brown, furry asshole spider. I don't mean like a tarantula. I mean a normal spider. I shriek. I jump away, and I start crying. Meanwhile, this shithead piece of crap freaky spider just meanders along the kitchen floor. Entirely unperturbed. Entirely normal. Just fine. So I think.... "Okay, Girl, get your crap together. This is a big spider here. You have dogs. What if he's poisonous? What if he's a murderous bastard that looks normal at first but then comes back to kill you and everyone you've ever known later? He has to die. Burn the house down."

Spoiler alert: I didn't burn the house down. I did what any sane, rational woman would do. I grabbed a flip flop and I chucked it at the thing thinking... well, it's almost winter and I won't be wearing it again until next year. Maybe that's enough time to forget the carnage on this beloved shoe? I missed the stupid spider. And now he's mad. He (could be a she, but I think it's a male because... well, because...) crawls and hides behind my dog's bowl. Oh. Hell. Naw. I can't have this. I have to actually feed my dog, right? Of course, I do. Don't be stupid, me.

Meanwhile, I'm crying and whimpering like a baby and cursing the world. So I grab one of those long bar, florescent lights... you know what I'm talking about? The kind they use in lights in all the bad high school sex-ed films. I carefully pull the bowl away from the spider, after making sure he's not actually on the bowl. I can hear the glass making "I might shatter" noises, but I manage. The spider is now curled up between the floor and the wall. So what do I do? I scream at it, but not in a normal way. I don't say "SCREW YOU, SPIDER!" Because he'd understand me and still come back and kill me and everyone I've ever known. He's now the mafia spider. I believe he carries body bags in his trunk with the sole purpose of throwing the bodies (weighted down, naturally, he's not an animal) into the bay.

I throw another shoe at him. Miss entirely. I can't walk past the spider now to retrieve the shoe. Fortunately, we are humans and our shoes come in pairs. But now I'm too afraid to move because I've just realized he could be a jumping spider and attack me from across the room if he saw fit to do so. I believe I called my mother at some point. What I expected her to do, I still have no idea. She lives almost an hour away.

So I stand there for a few minutes, staring this spider down while trying not to be too obvious about it. And I'm blaming my boyfriend of two and a half years for this. It is his fault. He is never home when this crap happens. Okay, once he was home. There have been (I think) four spiders of actual, freak-me-out size that he hasn't been home for. Oh and two snakes. One slithering along the outside of the house while I was trapped outside and on the phone with my boss, crying in terror. The other was actually inside of the house. My friend came out and killed that one for me. Otherwise, I would've left the house and never come back. I'm nothing if not logical.

So at some point I threw a couple more shoes at the spider. Now he's really at a point where he's fed up with my bad aim. Who can throw shoes well, anyway? If it were a baseball or a softball, I could've killed him with ease. But Mama always said, don't throw balls in the house. (Tee hee. Get over it. I'm immature every once in awhile.)

The spider starts crawling away and hides in the laundry room. I have no need to go in there. I consider briefly trapping him under a bowl until the boyfriend can get home but think better of it when I start approaching the demon spawn.

The moral of the story here is... spiders will kill you whether you leave them alone or not. Hole up in your room, watch the door with a 12 gauge, and don't move. There is no moral of the story. Spiders suck. Meanwhile, as I'm writing this... the spider is still alive. Somewhere. Plotting his revenge.

UPDATE: The spider came back. I'm convinced he came back for me because he was running straight for my computer chair. Fortunately, he didn't make his reappearance until late in the evening when the boyfriend was home. He killed it. The true moral of the story is: when a big, creepy spider dies, don't wonder if it's the same one or a different big, creepy spider.

I'm not writing to try to be helpful this time. Whoops, sorry guys. I feel like it.

Have you ever been in the mood to write something or read something and you just can't do it? I have. Recently.

I go through phases with my writing. I'll write for weeks on end, not a problem. It's pretty much all I do during that time. My fiancee will say something three or four times before I hear him. Then he'll repeat it once he's gotten my attention. I'd love to pretend that it isn't rough trying to write and keep a train of thought when someone is talking to you... But I can't pretend. For all I know, he could be saying awful things about me and I'd never know it. Granted, I'm not about to marry someone who would do that! (Just saying.)

Distractions are the bane of writer's existences. Not just while you're in the middle of writing either.

Quitting smoking after finishing up a major plot point? That's one hell of a distraction, let me tell you.

I'm not gonna lie... some distractions are welcome. Like the rumbling of a stomach when you haven't eaten breakfast or lunch to remind you that you've been working too long? That is a nice time to take a break.

What's not so nice? Not being able to write when you so desperately want to because your mind is so busy with other things.

But distractions or not, it's so much fun being a writer. Not just thinking up plot points and characters and other universes... but reaching a point where you start to think about the many ways your story can go, then choosing the one you think will shock people the most.

A friend of mine recently told me that all writers are sadists. It just adds to the fun. And it's true. We love making people miserable, even if we do give them a happy ending. Or not.

I will happily take all of the distractions in the world if eventually I can get my writing done. Because it's just all worth it. Eventually.

I find it incredibly difficult to break out of my genre. I'm not really even talking about writing here. Just reading.

I can't help myself. I'm heading into my late twenties and my bookshelf doesn't show it. I can't stop loving The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Twilight even. Not the movies, because of reasons, but the books. Don't you get it? Sure, vampires aren't supposed to glitter and they're supposed to be terrifying. But I am girl, hear me roar, and I can't stop enjoying the idea of forbidden love. A moral and an immortal who just can't stay away from each other because their love is too strong. sigh.

I'm not a romantic person, really. I'm so super awkward, it's ridiculous. So why do I love all things sappy? Sarah Dessen is also another good example of how I can't get away from those YA novels that beckon me. Seriously, I almost have an entire shelf dedicated to her.

Let's back up for a second here... I don't love all things sappy. I don't like Shakespeare. I find his work difficult to get into and nothing much sappy about it. It's all just such a fucking tragedy.

The Divine Comedy This is such a beautiful book, though. One that I can say I read in such an adult way.

It's not such a bad thing to just like what you like. Anything supernatural, paranormal, angels versus demons, blah blah blah, really makes me disappear from the world for awhile to read. Just like it. Accept it.

I read these descriptions of fictional adult books (not the naughty kind) and I'm like, "meh." I'm not interested in reading about adult problems. I am one, I have my own.

Rant over. Rant is never over.

Everybody is a writer.

I met a man who has helped me with some of the finer details of marketing recently. Turns out, he's a writer too. A fresh one. When I say fresh, I mean someone who doesn't really have much experience with writing a book but wants to write their first book, regardless. It's not a negative thing; it is what it is. I was asked, indirectly, what my writing process is. And here it is:

Sometimes I will spend hours, or days during hard times, creating a playlist that will mimic the flow of whatever book I have in my head. I have major plot points mapped out in my head, but I don't write anything down. I don't think about the finer details. Then once my playlist is complete, I write. Most of the time, it takes me a week to write a book. I'll write for a few short months and do nothing else during that time. I don't play video games (as I so love to do) or read other books. I just write.

Some writers will limit themselves. Some will only write for an hour a day, others will write a specific number of pages, or even word counts. For some writers, it helps to make plot charts, character bios, and other pertinent information. I don't do this because it doesn't work for me. I also have a strange sort of writer's block. When I write for months, I'll write as much as I can and then I'll put it down and walk away from it. There's this feeling I get... this heaviness in my eyelids as I try to write, and I know it's time to step back. Sometimes I only need a day and I'll keep trucking for a few more weeks. Most of the time, however, I end up not writing for roughly a year. But here's the thing... I can write a book in a week, so in a few months, I can finish an entire series. I don't feel the need to write for a long time because there's plenty else to do, like the editing process. I don't feel bad about "writer's block."

Whatever process works best for you, just go with it. When most writers sit down to do their craft, it's like a ritual. You always do the same things over and over again and it works. If you haven't found a ritual-like process yet, then keep searching for it. Maye it'll help not to limit yourself. Maybe you need the limitations. Maybe you need charts, or music, or specific nail polish on to write (it has happened). Keep searching if you need to find it.

Everybody is a writer. So own it.

For a long time, I wrote in secret. No, I don't mean that no one knew I was writing ... It seemed like everyone knew I wrote, all the time. I used to have composition notebooks with the marble covers, and I would write anything from short stories to poems, from random paragraphs to novels. I wrote so much, but I was so terrified of sharing my writing with others. I was especially afraid of sharing my writing with those closest to me; I almost felt that those people would be obligated to say good things about it. There's the problem with loved ones: you're always afraid that they won't feel comfortable giving you constructive criticism. Maybe you don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe your friends and family are open with you, completely honest in the nicest way possible, and you have nothing to fear.

I don't try to make it a secret that I have anxiety. It's debilitating and sometimes it's all I can do to just put my head in my hands and cry. Because of my anxiety, I'm an over-thinker. I constantly wonder at double meaning behind other people's words, I constantly worry about the words that I say or even don't say. I fear loss, not death, but thinking that I am not good enough for my friends to stick around through my bad times. How does any of this translate to a fear of writing? I'll tell you how ....

Living with anxiety is a big deal. Putting yourself out there is an even bigger deal. Writing, even if it is fiction, and publishing, is scary for someone who lives with anxiety. I decided not to let my fear control me, because I am decidedly not my anxiety. I remembered that I don't like every book that I read, so my books won't be everyone's cup of tea and that is fine. So I wrote, and this time, I knew I was going to publish it. Writing and reading are my escapes from this world, my anxiety, and a journey that I can take, not alone, but with the friends that live inside those pages.

I say, don't live in the dark cocoon of your fear. Don't let it become who you are, don't let it define you. If you love writing, music, photography, painting, or whatever, then do your art and let the world see it. What you put out into the world may just be the gift one person was looking for.