6 posts tagged “this writer's process”

Having not been up here in Voxland for a while, I was just reading back through a few of my old posts. I feel very fond of them, which is nice. I read this one just now, and remembered that Edward Abbey had actually written it before, in The Fool's Progress: An Honest Novel, although he managed to do it in just one line:

Home is where, when you have to go there, you probably shouldn't.

:).

And now it occurs to me that it might be time to read that one again. That and Cavedweller by Dorothy Allison. Excellent.

I need to get back to thinking in words, again, to writing. I've been floating in the blue for a while now, spacing out, staring at the sea. It's been worrying me lately, but today I'm noticing it's maybe fine, good even. L came into the bar for dinner the other night, and said as much. I told her I'd been wasting a lot of time lately, and made some sort of apologetic noises about it. She just looked at me for a minute, that look where she cocks back on her hip, tilts one eye at you, and takes your entire measure in a glance. Then she said, "It's ok to waste time. You should do that."

Wise woman, that L. Being one of the most driven, effective people I know, I feel she's got pretty decent credibility about wasting time as a right choice. She's my boss at My Institution, and she's one of the best mentors I've ever had---wicked smart, morally sound, in every way, and simply the most constructively challenging teacher I've ever had. And I've had some superb teachers.

At any rate, she's right. I've been thinking, furiously, at full speed, for a good chunk of years, now. I think now of Dorothy Allison's line: "A [person] needs some dream time." I've been on dream-time this past month, and now that I think of it, thank God! This past year, teaching full-time for the first time, recovering from grad skool, keeping my life happening and in good enough health---man, I was starting to get really properly tired. ;)

It's like I've been innertubing down narratives, on that laziest narrative river of them all---TV shows. Specifically, Numb3rs. I turn it on, with its easy-peasy-intellectual-inquiry quality, and its family-that-likes-each-other quality and its smooth-problem-resolution quality, and just float on out on my imagination, gently bouncing and toodling along, from point to point.

This dream-time will have to recede eventually, at least by August, and I think it'll be good for it to ebb sooner. So like I said, I need to get back to thinking in words, to writing. I find myself interested in making some poems again, just little ones, little snapshots. I like snapshot-poems. I made a ton of them a few years back. It was a delightful time of paying close attention and finding a lot of beauty and interesting things.

Hmmmm....

So I know I've been gone from here for a long time, and it might be a little presumptuous to ask my neighbors for help given that hiatus, but here goes anyway. ;)

I'm working on a comic book, finally, about a superhero I've been cooking in my head for a few years now. The thing is, I've chosen this genre because it just seems to make sense, but I don't have a lot of experience with comics. I never really got into them when I was younger, and for the past zillion years I've been in some level of school that hasn't allowed me to do any reading outside of my syllabi. In particular, I'm having a hard time figuring out the pacing of a comic narrative--I keep writing wayyyyyyyyy too much. I am working with a much more experienced comic artist, which is awesome, but he lives a long way away and is also very involved with his own life, so I haven't had a ton of luck getting time to talk productively with him.

So if anyone out there knows of some comic or graphic novel titles I should check out, specifically ones that feature powerful female protagonists, I would so appreciate the tip.

Thanks, and I hope the holiday is sweet for all!

Done, done, done! Both of the last-MA-papers are done! And printing right now! Wonderful, wonderful world!

A couple nights ago, I took a break. It was very nice. SLP and I went to a little party thrown for us GA's by our really very lovely Department Head. We were in and out in just under 2 hours, and managed to escape most of the more pretentious conversations. Plus, the food was good and free.

I had worked on one paper or another all day (week, month, year?) and he had closed loans all day (bless him), and so when we hit the free air again at around 9, we did not go back to work. Instead, we changed our clothes and went for a walk through the first truly warm night, looking for ice cream. Our walk took us downtown, where we made our way through crowds of very nicely dressed folks-at-leisure, all going into and out of hip bars and restaurants with the speed of paparazzi chasers. For about five minutes, we felt a little underdressed, a little undercool. After all, we never go out, and when we finally did that night, we went in our scrubs, feeling very decadent and out-on-the-town. We quickly came to our senses, though, and ended up on the porch late into the night, chatting and smoking and noticing.

Noticing how beautiful everything was, how good things smell in spring, how remarkable it was to not only be not working, but to be not working as though we were done with our work, instead of not working while being plagued with burning anxiety that we should get back to work. Call it a miracle, if you like--it seemed like one to me.

At one point, sitting on the porch with a very healthy feeling ache in my legs from actually getting some frickin' exercise, with a clear-ish head and really very clear heart, I was really struck by that miracle. Thinking back over my adolescence and twenties, I could remember a lot of fun moments, a lot of beauty, but not a whole hell of a lot of just plain nothing moments that were actually miracle moments in which I was actually able to simply be present to the miracle nature of getting to be having a really nice nothing moment.

Phew. Right. But that was what I was tripping out about. For whatever reasons, I've had a lot of loss and pain and difficulty in my life, and a lot of depression and just plain sorrowing and hurting. For the longest time, I was chased by the deep conviction that I was at core purely gross and unworthy, and by the resultant anxieties and perfectionisms. I cannot quite find words that satisfy me to express my unfuckingbelievable gratitude for all that now, because without it, although I'm sure I could have had a lot of really great nothing moments, I don't think I would have been as able to be present to them, to notice them when they happened, to really get what awesomely, mindbogglingly miraculous gifts they were.

Hmmm...

I'm writing this post, because I'm having another one right now! Today was full of gifts--SLP, the cat, and I are all healthy and fine, as are almost all of our people; PTM came over and did her homework on the porch with me today; Heartswater has been making time in all her mad work schedule to cheer me on and cheer me up, and so on. But right now at this very moment I am taking another break! Another break where I'm not feeling all worried and tied up in the work I should be doing!

How totally fucking cool is that? Both papers, as of an hour ago, are almost completely done. The Af-Am Lit paper just needs a Works Cited page, and the 18th-Century Brit Fiction one just needs an outro and a Works Cited. And I totally have both time and energy to get them done in time to turn them in tomorrow evening!!!!

Sweet, sweet, sweet!

Hope the night is good to all of you!

One of my fave professors told me that the other day, and I'm holding onto it like a buoy in choppy waters right now. She said to think of it as a short, concise, pretty arrangement of ideas, with a twist at the end. The twist is the "implications for future work" bit, the bit that makes it ok not to have everything worked out in my head and on the page. That whole unfinished feeling of the conference paper is hard for me. I never know what I think in 12 pages, ever. This feels vulnerable and vaguely nauseous.