The day is dragging, and so I'm here, feeling like I want to put some of my own words down, since I've been posting so much by other people.
I just want to say: I've been stuck. Leave it to a really, really, horrifically unjust working situation to sap the fun right out of my creative self. I couldn't write a word for months. It didn't even feel like I was the same person as the person who wrote words. But I'm so tired of whining about that, and I know the only thing there is to say is, enough. Do it anyway. Write something, anything, now.
And I'm working on that. I've been doing The Artist's Way morning pages most days, and I keep a small red moleskin notebook in my bag, and jot notes on the train. (This morning, a rainy morning, I saw a little Asian boy in yellow rain boots, and yellow raincoat with blue and green trucks on it, and a bandaid on his left cheek. He stopped on the steps inside the train, held is mom's arm while she got out their fare, and I wrote him down.) These are cursory gestures, mostly. But they're what I have, and I think of them building momentum for me.
The other thing I'm doing: submitting two items a day to literary journals. Back in the day, I used to do these all at once. I'd rent a season of Alias, and spend the entire weekend admiring Jennifer Garner's back muscles and stuffing polite queries and stacks of poems into envelopes. It would take me hours upon hours, but I would do 50-75 of these in a go. Now, I've had to accept, my life isn't like that. I don't have hours upon hours. They simply don't exist. But I do have twenty minutes between waking up and washing my hair. Those I have, if I hurry on the hair routine and make my lunch the night before. And it feels measly to only have a wee little pair sent out each day, but they're quickly adding up. In a month, I'll have sixty. Except that sometimes I miss a day or two, and I'm trying to be okay with that, too. If I beat myself up, tell myself what a sorry excuse I am to not even be able to push out two a day (and yes, I AM that mean to myself), I never get back to it. And, like I said, the slow and steady momentum is what I'm counting.
Last weekend, Sam invited me on a writing date, bless his soul. We went to a coffee shop, he ordered me pretty little pot of minty tea, we staked out a couch as our territory, and we both typed for a few hours, our laptops perched on our knees. I don't think I got anything good out of it, but how romantic, no?
5 comments:
So glad you are writing--part of the "larger becoming," right? The writing date sounds perfect for you two.
measly little 2 a day? I don't understand how that can be not enough even if you miss some days. What a bummer you have YOURSELF to compare you to :) I like the idea of a writing date (although jeff and I aren't writers), I think we're out of date money for the month even for a pot of minty tea though....
You inspire me. I thought I had a pretty good goal of the number of submissions I wanted to send out. And then I read this. Looks like I've got me some re-evaluating to do (and some more submissions to send out).
Also, yay for the Artist's Way.
I love the idea of a writing date. I'll have to have one with jude. Although, he may make me be his pot of tea....
Hi, Deja. I don't remember how I stumbled on your blog, but I've been reading and enjoying for a while now. Your writing is so beautiful. Thanks for the link to The Artist's Way. It's just what I've needed lately.
Reba
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