This is one corner of my messy office, where I store/hide/treasure everything that is not suitable for anywhere else in the house. (in other words, my family doesn’t want to look at it).
I am lost in the details of the place where I try to write. (Note words “try to.” I’ll get to that in a minute) The place where I keep adding to this blog. Or compile tax papers. Or match what I think I spend to what the bank says I spent. Or make great long to-do lists that land in the to-don’t pile.
So, why should I post on my website now, when I have written hardly a lick for a year, or more? It’s likely no one is even paying attention.
But I pay for the thing – the space in cyber space, so to speak. I won’t denigrate the Scots by claiming half my ancestry for making sure I used what I continue to pay for, but I was raised to be careful with money. After all, it’s hard to get. Especially when one is a writer who isn’t writing. This what happened:
I was beavering away happily on an historical novel that spanned three generations across the length and breadth of Canada. I saved it on a thumb drive because I didn’t want to lose the manuscript, and periodically saved it to the cloud and to my computer’s interior workings. I printed out various bits and pieces so I could refer back and forth from the screen to the page, and to help with editing. I survived a “no” from a publisher and hard advice from an agent, and kept writing. With joy.
I took a Masters’ revisions course courtesy of Jill MacLean and the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia. Enthused, empowered and energized, I gloried in the expanding number of pages as I followed my characters home to their denouement.
Then, one morning, I slammed my butt into my seat to pick up where I’d taken off and… What the…? My manuscript had fizzled into 300-plus pages of mangled words and half-paragraphs, interspersed with the occasional sensible sentence.
Ok, I had back-up.
But none of them made any sense either. The USB sticks – all of them – had devolved into gobbledy-gook that the region’s best computer wizard could not restore. He had no answers and neither do I. I still don’t know what happened.
So I stomped. I cried. I screamed. None of it loudly or in public – not my kind of gig. Suffice to say that the trees and critters heard a lot.
I felt like knocking trees over – but this damage is the work of Hurricane Fiona
Ultimately, I went back to my printed pages, the electronic bits and pieces that remained, and the outline. I tried to start over, but my heart for it was gone.
I put it away for the summer. And the next summer. I quit Facebook. I quit some volunteer organizations, activities and responsibilities to give myself time to recoup. I got back into the craft of making somethings (earring holders, jewelery, signs, blah-blah) from nothings (rocks, broken glass, wood scraps, seashells, etc). It’s not, by any means, lucrative – but I am doing SOMETHING. I cleaned up my long-neglected flower beds, and started to fill boxes with items I no longer want/need/use so I can have a yard sale. It will probably include those “somethings.”
This change might all be a sign of increasing age – which is much better than stopping the ageing process altogether. I am not ready for that!
The universe persuaded me to start some new activities. I am learning to have fun, to actively enjoy my friends and life itself.
I learned to say “F*** it” if that’s what needs to be said. I have let go of a lot. There is a light on the horizon.
So, I now write a bit: undeveloped story ideas in a notebook that I keep beside the bed; poetry on scraps of paper that I burn; letters; reports for volunteer community groups that want something written… I journal – I am now on Big Thick Book Number Three.
I write sermons and other bits and pieces as one of three licensed lay ministers in my beloved little church. If that bothers anyone, so be it. I went a long time as a journalist not stating preferences for anything, in case I was seen as biased. Now, I don’t care.
I still think of myself as a writer, After all, I HAVE written and often been published – just not so much lately. I have plans to return to my novel – a little bit of discipline here and there.
It has occurred to me, as I get older, that the word “deadline” has new meaning. It’s kind of a “now or never” feeling, but I am not holding my breath – that’s not healthy.
And I feel just fine. So, to those who have asked what I am working on: I am working on me. Whatever that involves.
