Here I am again,
on a bright March morning, not writing. I gaze out at my empty back yard that's
usually teeming with wildlife--squirrels, deer are the most frequent
inhabitants, but I've seen groundhogs, raccoons, beaver--and my mind is blank.
No characters begging for release back into the lives I've created for them.
I bought 3 boxes
of pens 2 weeks ago in a fit of optimism that the way they glide across the
paper will facilitate my writing—that the ease of getting words on paper will
make it not just possible to write whatever's next, but will inspire me, will
create characters, PLOT—ah, there’s the rub…WHERE IS THE STORY GOING?? I am so
restrained by not knowing when the story is and where it is going.
An exercise, finally, started the character table DOB and DOD…this is SO
important! Get to know these people.
Who are they?
What do they want?
What stands in the
way, individually, for each?
Establish a TIME
LINE.
Thoughts on a character, Mr. Blank…is
he married? I think not. I think he’s in his late 20s, still living with his
widowed mother, who is not well—she’s a good woman who would NEVER put demands
on him, but who is ill and helpless and has no one else (Mr. Blank has a sister
in California who leaves care of their mother up to her brother…maybe mother
and sister suspect he might be gay, but never address that thought). His mother
will somehow/sometime meet his sweetheart. Mr. Blank's mother intuits the
closeness between her son and this young woman. Mr. Blank, as a single man tied
to his mother, is more appealing than a married man cheating on his wife and
children; he also shows a willingness to stick with someone when the going gets
tough.
DO THIS. DO THIS.
Stay with the not knowing. Be willing not to know where I’m going. Be
uncomfortable. Go into each “exercise” willing to be uncomfortable, willing not
to know where I’m going. Practice what I preach…i.e., when I go to my crayon
box I should stop looking at the colors...just take whatever my fingers find;
be willing to have opposing colors together. Don’t question whether I can or
have the right to tell this story.. Don’t let myself get railroaded by doubt.
BE IN TODAY. BE NOW!
What is it that
keeps me from working on a new novel or on old short stories? Why am I not NOW
sitting at my keyboard and—AT THE LEAST—transcribing notes from a year ago? I
sit here icing my recently wounded left shoulder, heating pad on my lower back,
79 years old and otherwise CONTENT with my life, and, in fact, contemplating
the launch of my second novel; the only thing lacking in my life (aside
from a cure for my daughter's cancer) is my inability—at this moment—to write.
Many years ago, as I approached the final draft of Dry Grass, did I have
the same reluctance to write? Did I daily come up with reasons not to write?
Did I plan so much—so many things—in my daily life that constant writing was
impossible?
I sit here in a
different recliner (the former one is downstairs, still functional, and the
current one is in its place—the identical footprint). I look out at the same
tree—just budding now—that rises at Matt and Cheryl’s house. None of their
three daughters had been born. Through the window I see the enormous pile of
split wood from the half-felled tree that—if allowed to continue to age and
eventually rot—could take at least Charles and Nancy’s roof, if not
ours, but which has never been a threat or fear for me. There are so many
things to fear, but fear of not writing is my greatest.
How do accomplished
writers of many novels do it? Why am I not writing? There is so much ease in my
physical position, lying in this recliner with a fine pen in hand on these
cheap legal pads. An occasional car passes. Earlier the mail truck—J-M went
out and collected the mostly junk and mostly tossed it. As I wait
for the ice and heat to soothe my ancient joints, I have thoughts of how “we”
might direct traffic from our street after the construction at the end of
Mitchell is finished, houses erected and sold. But it is certainly two years
before any noticeable increase in traffic here, so why do thoughts of directing
it so consume me?
Why can’t I live
in today, grateful for my remarkably good life—it is indeed quite
remarkably good—is it because I still fear success? Surely not.
Another gratitude
is that I share my life with a man who—though quite noisy—puts no demands on
me.
Afterthought: I’ve
just discovered that doing this handwritten page and a half (transcribe to this blog) has greatly relieved my angst. This (the scribbled pages) IS
writing.
