Elation like a Tidal Current

When my session finished out last night I had actually completed 11 pages instead of the 8 I was so pleased with when I posted. After writing I sat down with a Tobias Wolff collection and read a couple of stories to finish out my quiet time. As I left the hospital where I work I felt great. The night was clear and cool and I had a sense of accomplishment as I drove home with the window down.

Upon arrival I discovered that my wife was still up and working around the house. I tried to offer my assistance and then to make her a sandwich as she hadn't eaten that evening but I was met with cool detachment. There was no need for me. In fact, I felt like I was in the way a burden on her already busy and stressful schedule. There was no kiss hello, no welcoming hug, no question as to how the writing was going and so I went to make myself something to eat.

By the time my sandwich was finished I could feel my elation fleeing me like a riptide pulling away, farther and farther from the shores of my mind. In the vacuum, the empty space where I had once held joy was a cold silence, an emptiness that isolated me within myself. It was like the return of a familiar lover. I can make out the outline of this isolation, run my fingers along the cheekbone of its face as it gives a wan smile as greeting, a lover returned too soon but desperate for recognition.

And so I collapse a little and, I believe, for the first time in the months since I have been feeling this way. I pull a blanket up onto the couch and watch mindless television in silence. After a few moments she joins me but not to chat or discuss but simply takes a chair a fair distance away from me and sits with her hands in her lap.

Loneliness in the face of another is terrible. It eclipses any loneliness that is felt while truly isolated from the contact of others and I tremble under the weight of it, I don't know if I can bear the full mass of it though I try.

Finally, after a half hour of news reports, she speaks. "How was the writing tonight?"

"Fine," I say, not able to muster up a more committed response. I feel salt tears pressing for release but hold them back and my eyes itch from dryness.

"Did you get a lot done?"

"Yeah," I say and this time there is a little pleasure in the response, a small sign that there is truth to it.

"Are you okay?" she asks, finally allowing herself to admit that I am not myself.

"I don't feel good."

"Are you taking your vitamins?" she asks and I want to laugh at the question, at the sheer wrongness of her response.

"No," I say in a flat voice.

"What is it?"

"I just don't feel that good MENTALLY."

"Oh," she says, "is it school?"

"Yes, but it is everything."

"Is it me?"

"It's everything. I'm just not feeling that great about myself right now."

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks and there is trepidation in her voice, a reluctance to open the door for me to speak freely.

"I don't know," I say, "we don't have the best track record of communicating stuff like this." I know she will take this personally but there is truth in it as well. She will take the things I say personally and I will have to coddle her, reassure her. There isn't much release in that for me. She leaves. She turns from me and goes to bed without pursuing the issue further.

I wanted her to press me for answers, to show an investment in my mental welfare, to want to help me but she left. She simply went to bed as if it were a regular Monday night. Like I said, it's terrible to feel isolated in the presence of company.

Eight Pages.

Eight pages of horrifyingly bad prose with the sparkle of an idea buried underneath and I am joyous. It's been a long time since I have felt my fingers flying over a keyboard channeling some inner movement that I often times don't understand. But tonight it happened. I think I allowed myself to write shitty prose and I had no idea what I was writing but it came and it came quickly. I know that almost the entirety of the eight pages will go away but in the course of following "Jeff" through the first part of this first draft, I fumbled upon something interesting. I came across obsession and that is always good.

It took a short story to set me off running and once I touched my fingers to the keyboard, found some semblance of a first sentence, I was off to the races. It's good for me to write poorly because it isn't the act of creation in this first draft that matters. It is only important for me to get some semblance of an idea down on the page and I will hone it and craft it until it is something completely different, but whole, in later drafts. I have to remember this.

I have been obsessing myself lately, watching Tracy from behind a thin veil of resentment and anger that is more to do with my slightly depressed self than anything I think she is really doing "wrong." I don't feel good and I'm pushing that feeling over to her, blaming her, and I can see some of that now. Eight pages and I feel a small portion of the weight lifting from my shoulders.

It's not good for me to be away from writing for too long. It isn't healthy for my mind. I need to exist on the page, pour myself out into fictional characters, know that there are other people out there who suffer and fail, live and love. It is good for me to find that there is a capacity within my soul to hold all of the good and the bad together and still be a man, and maybe someday...a good man.

Eight pages, oh thank you, God!!!

Niched

I've been ruminating on story ideas for a while now and I believe it is time to approach the page and get some of them down. I have been avoiding it for a while now and I'm feeling cowardly. Also, in avoiding the page I am allowing for thoughts of inadequacy and failure to creep into my thoughts. I have actually had a couple of moments where I have doubted the endeavor as a whole.

Here is one of those moments:

I'm meeting people in Barnes and Noble, not a bookstore I frequent but a convenient meeting place. I'm early. I'm an hour early and I'm actually looking forward to spending some time browsing the fiction and literature section of the store. Bad idea. I have my letter from my second packet with me and there is a list of short story collections that Jack sent me included in its pages. I go down the list of 10-12 books and I find a total of three. I had no plans to buy the books here having recently found a quaint independent bookseller a couple of miles from my house but I begin to realize that this is where most people by their books, at big box stores like this, if not at the grocery store.

I decide to try an experiment and look up the faculty members of our program to see what kind of exposure they are getting in this big box store. Pete: No. Jack: No. Claire: No. John: No. Craig: No (this one surprises me, being in Oregon and all). Valerie: No. Judy: Yes. David: No. I know it is a small branch of the big box, being located in an outlying strip mall attached to a mall but I begin to see how narrow of a niche we are afforded in this industry. Also, I begin to notice the sheer lack of short stories present on the shelf.

In addition, I begin scanning all of the title names and looking at the cover art and I begin to see a pattern. There are a lot of books with "shoes", "men", brand names, and other chick lit cliches dominating the shelves. The art is often of fashion items, makeup, or women in independent poses. I'm not disparaging the fact that women deserve literature of their own, that speaks to them and addresses their issues but it just begins to overwhelm me. I realize how much of a niche market I am really working in. Not just in the subject matter that I write in but also that I work solely in short stories at the moment. It was a daunting realization but tonight I am taking time to confront the page and my own insecurities and I'm hoping to write past all these troubling thoughts.

Wish me luck.

ARGH!

So it has been a number of days since I have posted here and I'm beginning to see my blog as an outlet for my various emotional overflows. I am fighting white space everywhere but here as I fill line after line with the crap rantings of a person too lazy to do the work.

I had the opportunity to work on my writing for a couple of hours last night and I pretty much did everything in my power to do anything but. I am not doing the work and the longer I prolong this phobia of the blank page, the more it grips me. I need to sit my butt in the seat and get to work but I can't seem to orient myself enough to even accomplish that!!!

How am I supposed to write if I won't even look at the screen. I have been filling my time with reading which, I guess, some would call filling the hopper, but I call evasion when it gets to this point. I have discovered some pretty interesting books of short stories in my evasion. The first is called Brief Encounters with Che Guevera by Ben Fountain and The Coast of Good Intentions by Michael Byers. Both are stunning examples of what threading one word with another can do and the power it unleashes. They are two very different storytellers but each person seems to capture the essence of place and character very well. I want to do the same. I want my words to have power and I'm just not sure how I can accomplish that when I am sabotaging myself at every given turn.

ARGH!!!

Drifting

The page seems very far away right now. In all the hours of working on my critical essay, I feel I have drifted away from stories and now, sitting in front of a blank Word document, I'm left with the uneasy feeling of not being able to write. I haven't had this feeling in a long time and I know that it too will pass, that it is a temporary freezing of the psyche and that I need to keep Marvin Bell in the back of my mind.

In listening to Marvin speak in the past he has said to give yourself permission to write poorly. Just write. It isn't going to be your best work, prosaic and beautiful, on a first draft anyway. So why do I put so much pressure on myself to make things beautiful on the first go round?

Lately, I have been caught unawares by these soaring peaks of emotion at the sight of things. I've felt the wetness of tears filling my eyes when I see small children with their parents. I feel alone in the presence of groups. I don't know what to say to anyone I come across and it's beginning to feel lonely here. I don't know what is happening inside of me but there seems to be some kind of emotional revolution taking place beneath the surface.

I wonder sometimes if it is the return of the muse, if I need to be patient and let that feeling cultivate while writing poorly. I like the idea of writing poorly but often have a hard time giving myself permission. I think the fact of the matter is that if I bring myself to the page and stay there, write trite draft after trite draft, the muse will descend through my fingers because I have left the door open for her.

Hmm, it's strange that I just named my muse as a woman. I've never thought about it before but I can almost see her hanging just outside of my reach. She is full figured and wearing linen, a coastal dress, loose and breezy against her hips. I can see her face and she is olive in complexion with brown hair that is light as she moves, brushing her ears as she moves and her eyes are open and alert, the slight tilt of the lids at the outermost corners. She is without blemish and her skin shows some light freckles, sun-kissed across the brow of her nose. I want her to say something to me but she remains walking towards me although never closing in. Her lips are smooth and soft, not wet with color but shining with a rosy hue that is a touch darker than her skin at the outline and sinking into a darker shade where it would open. She is beautiful but silent and again I am left feeling distant and alone. But I can hope that she will continue on her walk towards me and that some day, soon I hope, she will be allowed to approach and she will breath into my open mouth as I open to say something to her.

A Take on Revision

The art of revision is in allowing yourself to re-imagine the work as something other than what is put on the page. Many times, I find that I am mentally committed to the work I have done already and there is a reluctance to change what is already on the page. This commitment, this devout loyalty to the previous version can be a hindrance to finding a story's heart.

It helps to think of a first draft as an excavation site, an archaeological dig, where you have to use fine brushes and pointed tools to careful get rid of the dust and detritus that is obscuring the buried frame of a fossil. This image is helpful when the act of revision is simply a refining of the pieces already buried in a draft.

Other times it is important to think about blowing the whole site up and taking the shrapnel as the building supplies for the next draft. The pieces that have survived the explosion generally are little glistening bits that have resonance and, when reassembled in a new way, will join together like a multi-faceted gem, catching the light and shining in its new form.

I have been working on my essay for weeks now and I believe I have done a little bit of both techniques. I send it off today to my advisor in the hopes that it will be met with approval. I don't hold out for approval that it will be finished but that it will be seen as a step in the right direction. It may be that I can put the dynamite away and bring out the brushes and pointed tools for the next round of revision. Here's to hoping!

Poopy Diapers

Shea is quiet for a majority of the day, which is somewhat typical but there is something about her silence today that is unsettling. There is no way of communicating with her to see if she doesn't feel well so at this point it is all guess work. She is not running a fever though. The day is set off balance by her silence.

In the afternoon, after a day of trying to get a rise out of her, a smile or a laugh, I put her into her bouncy chair which doesn't seem to impress. Until, for no real reason at all, she begins to bounce with a big smile on her face. I'm so pleased to see her animated that I fall to the floor in front of the chair and begin making faces, cooing and enjoying Shea's good mood.

Then, the smell hits me. I am used to her smell and am not caught off guard by it often but this time there is a new quality to the smell and I pull her from the bouncy chair settling her onto my forearm with a squish. Her dress has ridden up and my forearm is covered in a stinky wetness I won't describe further but it's REALLY wet.

By the time I get her to the changing table, the smell is consuming me and I've now realized that she has made so much that it has risen up her back and over the top of the diaper. There are wet spots on her dress that mark tainted territories. I can't lay her on her back on the changing table until I get the dress off of her and do some damage control. I'm debating how this is to be done when I just decide to hose her off. It's bath time.

I strip her in the bathroom, setting the tainted garments in the sink and I clean up Shea with wipes the best I can before setting her in the tub. It takes more wipes than I have ever used before. When I set Shea down in the tub, I'm not too worried about contaminating the bath water. I scrub her up and wash her hair and when we are done Shea is back to her quiet, brooding self that has bothered me all day.

I'm disappointed that we've returned to this brooding silence but then something occurs to me that I haven't thought of before. While I will always be a fighter on the side of Shea's happiness, there are going to be times where I am going to have to do what is best for her and not what will make her happy in the moment. I don't like the idea.

I like the idea that I get to be her playmate, her confidante and partner in crime but that is not the case. I'm the parent here. I'm going to have to be the one to make hard decisions that are based on the OVERALL happiness of my child. I've never been a good big picture player but I'm going to have to learn. Yet another door opening in front of me. A threshold I will have to cross in order to be the parent I want to be but also the parent Shea needs me to be.

Productivity = Zero

I've been worthless all day. I didn't do a single thing at work but surf the Internet and somewhere around two the anxiety settled in on me. My discontent with my current employment can't escalate any further can it? I'm completely detached from any sense of investment in the job and I'm failing in the most basic tasks appointed to me. Now, don't get me wrong, I have the appearance of productivity but it is superficial, exists only on the surface and I wonder why I don't get any results. I feel myself to be a mask of a person, a hollow representation of an active member of society.

I spent the day pondering story ideas and playing word games on the Internet and I find myself unable to turn away from words. My mind is spinning over stories and themes, my essay topic and how to "go deeper" but it seems that I cannot keep myself engaged in the mundane details of living daily. I'm beginning to worry for my longevity in my current employment and it is something I need to consider as I have family obligations to attend to. Tomorrow is another day and I hope that my resolution will be stronger.

A Flickering Moment

A measured breath, a moment of silence and I dive in. One hour spent on the lawn of the hospital has allowed for a calmness to assert itself over me and I feel for the first time in many days that I am ready to engage in the endeavor of writing.

The mantra of my advisers, repeated and met with much frustration, has been "relax" and I haven't felt relaxed in many weeks, months even. Today, though, I can feel my shoulders loosen and a slackening of my chest as I sit down to the prospect of writing. Find a voice and allow it to dance across the page. Don't push. Don't play God. Listen, instead.

Where does the Time Go?

So, here I sit again on a Monday morning, wondering where the time has gone. With all my plans to focus on my essay, get some reading done and to mow my lawn, I have accomplished one. I got a little bit of reading done this weekend. I wonder how to be better at utilizing my time. I have my scheduled moments where I can focus but it isn't enough.

My mind is consumed with ideas for stories but I don't seem to find, or make, the time to get my butt in the seat. It has been bouncing around my head for a while now and I think it is time I committed to writing every day. I don't see how there is any other way to become committed to the craft. I have to have my butt in this seat every day.

So, whether it be this blog, a story, my essay, or some other piece of writing (poetry has recently become intriguing) I need to get my but in the seat every day. I think I shall start small and only ask myself for fifteen minutes. When blocked out like that it seems such a paltry amount of time. I can find fifteen minutes. Wish me luck.

Guilty Pleasure

OK, so I'm very guilty of the sin of procrastination. Last night was a study night and instead of getting stuff done I indulged myself with about, oh, eight hours of reading the latest Harry Potter book. I know, I know, I'm supposed to be all literary minded right now and focusing on my essay but I just needed the decompression. It was nice to be swept away into such a fantastical and fun world.

I got over 500 pages of it read and I should finish tonight so while I took a wild journey off the beaten path of expected responsibilities, it shouldn't sidetrack me for long. I have to say, it's been great.