Because now, six months later, I find my words have curled away from inspiration and scatter in gusts of doubt when I run in pursuit. I wonder how much is simply I have let myself get out of the habit of composing, let myself build new routines of inane errands and superfluous tasks that sweep away creativity and suck time thru a meaningless vortex. I know that I am uniquely gifted at wasting time until I’m late, filling spaces with dusting and organizing, pruning and the “home” aisles at tj maxx. I’ve been gardening and going to appointments, painting and reorganizing. There was a visit from my parents and three blind dates. There was the planning of the parental visit, thanksgiving plans, and a looming future without a steady paycheck. There’s always something I can distract myself with.
I would never have said that I procrastinate. Rather, I’m the opposite – give me a task, an assignment, an essay to write, and I feel anxious until I can get it done – hence the depositing the check the moment I receive it, buying the birthday gift when I notice it at the bottom of my list. And yet, my wise friend pointed out – that is exactly procrastination masked as productivity. I can run around all day, home depot, the grocery store, the park, planting, vacuuming, walking the dog, doing laundry...very productive...and not necessary...at least not in the quantity that I do them. This is how I put off crafting an introduction, mulling over plot, and avoiding outlines of chapters. This is how I fritter hours away because there are always library books to return days before they're due, milk to buy without the apples I'll need tomorrow, and towels to launder the moment they soak up a spill. A vision of “Don’ts” in time management and productivity. I don’t want the title of procrastinator. Don’t like it. And yet, I zip it up snugly as my book remains a plan rather than a work in progress.
It’s easy to talk about writing, plan to write, create space to write, graph budgets and brainstorm titles. But still there is the blank page and days have passed.
Write what you know – that’s what all of the authors say. Classes aren’t essential – the best medicine for writing is daily writing and read as much as you can. Ok – so I’ve got the reading under control and the daily writing – I can get back there. So I’m supposed to make a plan – a business venture to propose – does it include classes? Is it arrogant to assume that I don’t need education in writing before trying to draft my story? But more than the plan – because I’m good at plans and numbered outlines and excel spreadsheets...more than the plan is the bigger question: what kind of book to write?
I could write fiction; a thinly veiled memoir with artistic freedom to speak for my loved ones, disclose family trauma without splashing ‘nonfiction’ across the cover. But with fiction, there must be a plot and a climax, a storyline and an ending. And how to begin the story of my family? Is it a generational saga? No – I’m not really a fan of those. So I think I’d want it to be written from the different characters perspectives. Is that overdone? Would I be able to write fiction? I’ve never really tried. And what would be the ending? I have no good ending – but I wouldn’t want a story wrapped up in a bow anyway. And then I feel like I’d need to do some research – reread some of my favorite novels – but then I’ve read that’s a bad idea – don’t over think, don’t look for inspiration in old dog-eared novels because you’ll end up stuck in their genius and unable to write with your own voice. Can I tell I story that others would want to read without the support of true-life accounts?
So I could write nonfiction – which is what I at least know, read more of, and have been doing for the past six months, not to mention fifteen years. But memoirs seem tired – and for sure addiction memoirs are passé –but what is my story without that? More I want to write a compilation of articles, thoughts on life, and various insights like what I’ve blogged on – but what would keep the reader’s attention? There still needs to be a storyline, characters revisited, history explained, albeit slowly, that keeps it from being forever closed after a few chapters. How would my family react? How do I make it unique? Something undone?
I feel like that’s impossible – I want to make it like Sabrina ward Harrison in “spilling open”, like “encyclopedia of an ordinary life”, like ‘plan b: further thoughts on faith’ by Anne lamott, like ‘bird by bird’. What is my angle that’s undone? What makes my story worth reading? What’s the catch? The specialness?
And then I know – I’ve fallen into the old trap, prey to the quicksand of silence until I find my talent, my specialness, the one thing that I am the best at.
There it is – that’s where I start –
“Potential at my heels” – I start writing without a plot fully planned, without an outline, without knowing exactly what the book is about.
Or is that totally wrong?
Why all of a sudden do I feel lost in the pages of vanishing prose, unsteady balancing atop piles of journals, blindly wandering aisles of novels with a pen as my white cane? I don’t know the best way to write a book. So I would turn to more advice – more articles and books on writing, but I promise you, I could spend a year doing that and I’m not sure I’d be anymore clear.
Perhaps if I had a mentor – someone to pile my articles and journals and artwork and musings and say, help! Show me how to string this together. Help me create art from stale tears and thread stories to knit a cloak of prose. Help me figure out how to use all of these writings, what order to put them in, if I need a plot and a neatly outlined direction, or if I just put pen to paper? Help me tease apart my melodies and flesh out the orchestra. Guide me as I lug my words upon my shoulders.
Well, I don’t know if I’ve figured anything out- but at least I wrote. I wrote without a plan, for hours, just a rush of worries laid down and words spilling over the prior days of silence. I just wrote. That’s enough for today.
a very productive day...
