Dear Lord I hope this isn’t inspirational
How is the writing going? Must you ask?
My computer crashed while I was writing this post. Windows announced that it had encountered a problem and needed to restart. Oh, YOU’VE encountered a problem, Windows? Fascinating. I was under the impression I was the one with the problem, seeing as you just deleted my work.
Then Windows started collecting information about the problem. WHAT INFORMATION? You’ve destroyed the document! There’s your information! What else do you need? Witness statements? Perhaps I can identify missing paragraphs from a lineup.
And before anyone writes to explain the importance of saving one’s work, THANK YOU. I was hoping to lose an entire draft and receive a lecture about it. Two birds, one stone.
The computer took its time rebooting, presumably readying a report that would establish that the problem had been me all along. I had a choice between pounding my head against a hard surface or putting away laundry. I chose the latter despite the considerable appeal of the former.
This series of ambitious attempts to think interrupted by opportunities to fold underpants is an accurate representation of my writing life.
Would fridge magnets stick to him?
Yeah, so let’s step into the confessional. For a while this past year, I stopped writing my novel.
I’d been working on a novel for several years. Hundreds of thousands of words came and went. That’s a lot of words. You could fill several perfectly good books with that many words, provided you arranged them in a different order and replaced most of them with better ones. Eventually, I stopped enjoying writing the novel. Then I stopped enjoying the novel. Then I stopped enjoying the person writing the novel.
Oh, I could still enjoy the work of people whose brains apparently hadn’t gone on indefinite leave, but mine had become a rather joyless place. I could still write my own shorter pieces, and did so here on the ol’ blog. That machinery was functioning and often amused me. But I’d lost the part of my brain that wanted to play in longer form, generating ideas that led to other connected ideas. I’d stopped entertaining myself, which is a nasty thing when you’re a writer. You spend hours a day inside your own head. Might as well enjoy being there.
Many other writers seem to have approximately eleven bajillion ideas at the ready. Ideas in saecula saeculorum! I had that one idea, and it flopped around for years. Was it a bad idea or was it a good idea that I was bad at writing? The distinction seemed important until I realized that both explanations ended with me feeling stupid and also not writing.
Eventually, I started a different novel. I’ve written so extensively about my difficulties writing these novels that I may have inadvertently completed a different book. Thank you for your continued support of this franchise.
Yes, I felt like a failure. Yes, I know all the old chestnuts, no need to cite the Deep Magic to me. “You’re not a failure. You’re learning how to write this book. You only fail if you quit. Show up to the page. You’re not too old. Trust the process.”
It’s entirely possible the process is a bastard. The process requires one to show up, and showing up requires time. Writing is my JOB. And yet life insists on treating it as something I can squeeze in between other things. (What other job do you squeeze in? Surgery? “Keep that chest open, Frank, I’ll be back Monday. October at the latest.”)
Is he dishwasher-safe?
Summer was spent working, parenting, recovering from a medical procedure (all is well), enjoying the final guaranteed summer with all my children at home, and fulfilling various obligations. There was also a construction site approximately twenty-five feet from my office that required every power tool ever invented.
When I could find a few minutes to write, I couldn’t write. There was no Zone to even approach, never mind get into.
Had I lost something essential? Had the part of me that had once been curious and inventive and occasionally gloriously stupid decided it had endured enough? Perhaps it had gone into the woods to live in a small cottage, eating the occasional unfortunate traveler.
Does he come with attachments? Like a dough hook or something?
AND YET.
A few weeks ago, I started listening to my writing playlist again. I started occasionally cowriting again and I welcomed new ideas as one might welcome returning birds after an unpleasant winter, even if the birds turn out to be pigeons.
A glimmer.
If his son climbed into his suit and they jumped up two floors, would he need an elevator permit?
But I knew I was really getting back to it when I resumed ruining terrible movies for my husband.
Hear me out. Human civilization has reached the extraordinary point where we can access an almost limitless entertainment (countless videos about drywall anchors!) at the touch of a button. Despite this, last week my husband chose to watch the 2014 remake of RoboCop, thereby demonstrating the heroic tolerance for nonsense that has sustained him throughout our marriage.
I had excellent questions. I voiced those questions, mostly during major plot points. I was delighted. My husband was less delighted.
Needless to say, I was entertaining myself.
My brain is revving up again, which makes not being able to sit down and just WRITE on a SCHEDULE of SOME SORT particularly infuriating. I’ve got ideas. I’ve got things I want to say. I’ve got a book poking me in the noggin and a renewed appetite for doing the work.
But, you know, September in all of its double-stuffedness.
Can my writing brain be a little more patient? MAYBE. But patience is a virtue extolled by satisfied people. Or maybe dissatisfied people. Definitely folks not in a hurry to get to the good stuff.
Anyway, I’ve got a novel to write and some questions about RoboCop’s extended warranty.
