Yesterday afternoon, my son arrived home from Dartmouth, standing at least two inches taller and looking every bit the newly-turned nineteen-year-old he was. My girls having returned from prep school on the thirteenth, I was already finding the transition from Empty Nest to Full House both daunting and delightful; nevertheless, as I sat on one of the cold, wooden benches of the Union Street train station, I found myself struggling to make sense of the fact that my son was, at this point, the age I was when I became a mother.
Of course, I found myself skipping yet another writer's workshop.
.
Today, I sit fuming and determined to gripe!The question of the day is: why does everyone who can write a complete sentence feel it appropriate to call himself or herself a writer? This I ask several weeks after a rather infuriating incident which occurred while dining out with friends. Having just returned from poetry reading with a very kind couple, I found myself seated at a table in an over-priced, quite pretentious restaurant within walking distance of the auditorium. Unprepared for the setting, having assumed from the description that the establishment was something of a local pub, the couple was somewhat uncomfortable. That our "waitress" was openly disdainful of our rag-tag little crew of literary enthusiasts only exacerbated the unease, leading to a rather stilted conversation over our basket of bread sticks.
Because I had been decidedly underwhelmed by the opening poet (and as the feature poet gave her reading in the original Central American Spanish--which I, even after four years of high school and two terms of collegiate level Spanish classes, found difficult to follow), my contribution was minimal. Thus, I sat listening to references to Tennyson and Williams, trying my best to match their enthusiasm to some degree...all the while marveling that they could have been so completely impressed by what I thought to be mediocre offerings at best. Still, the atmosphere had been congenial, the night out quite pleasant (there-to-fore); ergo, I kept my opinions to myself (for a change!), opting to instead sit back and listen to the gentle rise and swell of conversation as is flowed steadily--soothingly in many ways--around me.
The conversation turned to work, as my friend had just emerged from the harrowing ordeal of finding employment in the precarious market born of our present economy. With great empathy and respect for both her courage and fortitude, I listened as she vented (mildly spurred by the effects of her martini) about the frustrations of her current position as well as the unique conflicts faced when working in both the non-profit and theological fields. As she spoke, I tried to be quietly (for those who know me, I later realized I was nursing unawares the imminent cold and fever which would soon leave me incapacitated) supportive while she itemized the list of nightmarish jobs in which she had found herself since leaving the seminary.
Then, it happened.
My friend turned to her husband and disgustedly announced, "Instead of telling people I'm a member of the clergy or that I work in the non-profit arena, maybe I should just call myself a writer."
Of course, I inwardly flinched, sure the effrontery--the unqualified indignation--all but blazed from my expression. On the contrary, without missing a beat, the husband replied, "Yes, honey. You do write all the time."
From there, the volley of exchange consisted of listing then classifying all the media in which her "writing" could be validated. There were all the usual assertions: I write on my job; I keep a journal; in college I wrote poetry; do you remember, honey, that poetry class in undergrad; I write everything, man so what am I going to write a short story about for this anthology the poet mentioned when I bought a copy of her book.
Neither one of them noticed how utterly, completely, and clearly insulted I was.
It has never failed. No matter where I have gone, in no matter what company I have found myself, nearly every person included--be that individual an engineer, civil servant, doctor, lawyer, mechanic, or educator--has announced to me that he or she, too, is a writer. When younger, I found it mildly annoying. As, however, I have grown older (and, as a result, somewhat crotchety) this trend has come to really irk and annoy me. You see, it is my belief that many of our great modern writers go undiscovered because of the sheer volume of self-proclaimed writers glutting the markets.
Don't get me wrong: many people who are not writers, who would never consider themselves writers deserve to be heard, published, even celebrated. I have alwayys been of the opinion that there are (and always have been) two distinct categories in the writing world: those who write and those who are writers. Many people have stories which need to be told, not all of them being, necessarily, "writers" There are those who are wonderful storytellers. Some have an awe-inspiring mastery of the language. Others have an uncanny ability to construct intriguing plots or master that fine art of believably seamless dialog.
Then there are the "artists": those who are as qualified to bear the title as the Picassos and Monets of the "visual"world. It is they to which poor little literary "hacks" like me struggle and sweat, labor and study, in short aspire to somehow--if only one in a lifetime--to rival. Those who write because they have no choice, because they could not conceive of doing otherwise; who construct their sentences with painstaking care, fighting the tides of alliteration and analogy, language and imagery; who study each rhyme scheme, count every line of prose for lyricism, rhythm, and "flow"; who are lost without dictionary and thesaurus, pencil, paper, and laptop on hand nearly twenty-four hours a day; those who are "writers" because they were born to write are minimized by the endless assertions by others that they, too, are "writers." And, I have often wondered to what extent the literary world has suffered under this new concept of as "writing" being little more than the desire to commit any thought, any idea, any thing to paper.
These past six-to-ten weeks have posed, I feel, the greatest challenge I have yet faced as a writer. Between an alarming succession of health glitches--with the inevitable time, stamina, and financial complications which accompany them--finding the inspiration or even the basic motivation to write has proven something of a dilemma. How does one set firm, uncompromising goals for herself when all she seems to do is sleep? (I mean, the ideas unfold in delightful abundance, but one doesn't have the paper or pencil, at the time, to write!) Now, my girls are newly-arrived home, thankful for the respite of Spring Break, filling the space around me with an energy as well as enthusiasm that are--in and of themselves--marvelously fatiguing.
Thus, a stack of neatly organized manuscripts rest atop my desk, patiently awaiting the proverbial Red Pen. The scribbled notes from my marble composition book of "sketches" are yet to be added to their respective works. My "to do" list of contests sits to one side with not nearly so many entries crossed off as I would like, while no less than five submissions to magazines require the cover-letters and postage necessary to transform them from hapless doodlings to serious works.
And, if all this were not enough, I am exactly one-thousand-four-hundred-sixty-one words behind in maintaining my daily quota.
Maybe the greatest inhibitor in the drive to succeed--to capture those stories, thoughts, images and concepts one hopes will captivate, entertain, move, even inspire--is that sheer, inexorable reality of existence:
Life Happens.
If it didn't, however, there would be nothing about which to write.
One of the single most important challenges in daily life is to Believe. Even if at times when it seems impossible Believe in the world around her, in others, in one's talents,in one's system of faith and values, or even in oneself, Believe in the sheer, unequivocal fact that no matter how bleak or disappointing, frightening or frustrating, helpless or hopeless a situation may seem, it can only last but so long...and when it ends, it is almost the inevitably followed by Hope.
Usually, when I write, I complete the project in a single draft--essentially editing as I go. It is a method which many who know me find quite baffling (in some cases even infuriating) because there is neither reason nor rhyme to the order in which each piece unfolds. Sometimes, I begin with the original idea in outline form then flesh out the body itself. Equally likely is that I might jot down a series of key phrases then work outwards towards the beginning and end. I have built entire short stories around a single conversation, idea, setting, or visual sketch. There have been times when, inspired by an individual encountered on the street, a particular meal, a current event or newspaper article, or basically any commonplace feature of my day, I have simply begun writing, jotting down images or details until a story come into being. Usually, though, an idea forms, and I rush to record the images before the mental depiction fades, expanding upon that original concept as I write.
This week, however, I am completely stumped.
Two weeks ago, disturbed by oddly indecipherable dreams, I awoke with an idea for the collection of modern "fairy tales" on which I had been working. Ostensibly, the book itself was finished--first draft completed with my loathing to touch it lest I mangle "perfection"; however, this story was so bizarre, so eerily unusual that rest would not come until I finished it.
Until that point, my children's stories flowed into being in a very smooth, very seamless effort, flowing onto the page as though I were telling the tale aloud to my own children, as I had done throughout their childhoods. This stubborn creation, though, refused to take shape. For an hour or more, its imagery seemed to guide itself from the realm of imagination onto my computer screen with little (if any) help from me. Ah! Dame Inspiration had struck and I had but to bow to her demands.
Then I realized...
It didn't have an ending.
The general idea was in place, as were the main characters, their personalities, the setting, pivotal conversations, the plot, the conflict, even the "moral" (as it was a fable)...yet absolutely no resolution whatsoever!
I had no clue as to how to end it.
Then, worse, when in the days that followed an ending materialized, I could think of no way to ease the main characters from that point at which I had left them suspended to that grand and glorious end.
And I still don't.
Perhaps this humbling experience is an atonement from my rather obstinate refusal to in any way alter my "formula" for writing. Or, maybe the time has come for me to face the need for some systematic approach to the story-making process. Some would even call it just retribution to my indignant and rather scathing responses (born of the "It's MY work! Don't touch it!" attitude) to constructive criticism--oddly ironic in one who "edits" the work of others for a living (though, in my own defense, I am just as passionate about preserving the very distinctly original voice of those others, as well).
Regardless of the why's and wherefore's, "The Sorcerer's Assistant" stares expectantly up at me, waiting patiently for an ending. As Far As the Mind Can Fathom is without its dark, somewhat macabre "last" entry. And I am left searching for an appropriate twist in the adventure of my hapless protagonist. I suppose his fate has become my own--a main character left in suspended animation until some resolution can be found.
But, then again, is that not the essence of all art: becoming somehow at one with that which is being created (and it becoming an extension of you) until elements of both are taken and received, forming on both sides a completely new and wondrous entity?
What is "writer's block" to you?
This morning I awoke to the gentle call of the wind as, once again, lacy white doilies of fluff wafted gracefully to the earth below. It always fascinates me how rapidly those minuscule entities--such insignificant objects in and of themselves--collect, together forming a force of nature so great as to paralyze entire cities, stop millions of determined individuals dead in their tracks. It is, I suppose, another reminder that although one act, one person alone might, likewise, appear insignificant, when joined, as a force, to others can easily become a power with which to be reckoned.
That, ironically enough, is how I would categorize my day: a wealth of small obligations and tasks which amounted piled up quite swiftly. That is not to say that any of them were "done". More accurately, the vast majority were touched upon with dubious results before I found myself sleeping through the day.
Around me, the disarray of my apartment and work area sat in silent testimonial of my recent convalescence. The question of accepting a new editing project glared up at me in comparable condemnation. My two daughters each faced their challenges in maintaining positive spirits and motivation at this pre-break stage of classes. Not far away, my son dealt with computer problems at Dartmouth, where the "buzz" of the day was the new president, Dr. Jim Yong Kim. I discovered another "flash" writing competition, which I promptly decided I was in no condition to enter today, even though my thousand-word objective loomed before me like a mammoth snow drift demanding to be shoveled. In the end, however, it quickly became apparent to me that being "fever-less" did not make one any less exhausted; accordingly, these endeavors--plus countless others--were grudgingly placed to the side for another day.
One question, nevertheless, refused to be ignored?
Why is that male writers share the same three maddening traits? There work seems to always include the terms "bulbous" and "globules." An eyeball must be gorily gouged from the sockets in an bluntly defined mass of oozing liquid matter. Dismemberment is a must: usually leaving a major character minus a limb or witness to a smooth, one-stroke decapitation. And, finally, there must be the inevitable crunching of bone and sinew. I believe that even in a cookbook or travel manual, somehow one must endure the ocular delights of crunching bone and sinew.
Above all else, it was this single, baffling dilemma which sent me back to the warm and security of my covers. E-mails could wait. The debris within the apartment would still be there come the morning. In a spate of inspiration, two-thousand words can be written as effortlessly as one. Even the minor crises of motherhood were easily soothed with a band-aid or two of advice and encouragement.
But cracking the Mystery of the Bulbous Globules proved absolutely insurmountable!
As I found myself facing another late night/early morning attempting to do this thing I so love to do, I also noticed my mind wandering to the inevitable questions which have hounded me since making the decision to devote less time to writing for others and more time writing original pieces of my own. There I sat, coughing and shivering, not daring to take my temperature for fear of the implications (and realities) inherent in that single, foreboding number, focusing on the increasingly bleary letters on my screen and asking myself,
"Are you out of your freakin' mind!?!?!?!?!"
It was not an easy decision, as a single mother of three, to refocus my attentions and efforts towards my lifelong dreams of becoming a "full time" writer, especially as there is a decided lack of support from family and a sense of overall incredulity among many of my friends. One does not, in the midst of a major illness (g6pd-induced MDS) not to mention putting three children through school (a son at Dartmouth and two daughters at Phillips Exeter Academy) merrily make up her mind to make such a sudden, life-altering decision. After all, it is not as though my ex-husband contributes financially to the children's upbringing in any way; moreover, my family--such as it is--in not the warmest, most supportive group in the world! Any sane person would have probably considered doing what I am doing, laughed uproariously, then gone on to saner, more realistic pursuits--such as rewriting from staggeringly brilliant notes the next staggering dissertation for the next, great scientific mind!
(You all realize that if one of my clients read this particular line, I would be so completely screwed, of course!)
Then, I remembered my childhood and those rare, wondrous moments when the concept, the vastness of writing in order to create, astonish, explore, and comprehend first unfolded before me. Learning that I could pluck specific aspects of life from the mundane ritual of human ritual and capture the grace and beauty, the magnificence and simplicity of human experience on a regular sheet of paper with a regular, stubby little pencil proved simply intoxicating! I--plain little Chance--could reform and reshape those realities into anything I chose to make them be with the power to learn from them...as well as urging others to learn from them as well. I could give life to what would have otherwise perished in those thin, insubstantial tendrils of faded memory. To capture, to preserve, to analyze, describe, and explore: these powers had been granted to me; and I could not help but use them whenever and wherever I could.
More compelling was the notion that there were other people out there--faceless, nameless entities, many of whom I would never know--who were awakening to the same marvelous revelation! To think that I could be a part of them and them a part of me left me flabbergasted.
Now--many,many years later--I find myself rediscovering the awe and mystery of writing, those aspects of creating into which so completely enticed me as a young girl. And, recalling those early days, when after I first revealed to my father my desire to write as an "occupation" I was subjected to a scathingly condescending three-hour lecture which left me curled in a tight ball on the burnt-orange plush of the sectional couch in our living room (filled with images of doom, gloom, and begging my bread on the streets of the naked city), I know with a still, placid, comforting certainty that--other than a mother and a decent human being--there is nothing in this world I would rather be...
Than a writer.
