In one of those Mobius strips of illogic, I have been telling myself I’m a crap writer, and won’t let myself start writing until the art arrives. I have told myself I can’t write until it’s perfect, and then observed, over and over, that I’m obviously not a writer because, look, I haven’t written anything. I keep arriving at the conclusion that writing anything is better than writing nothing– not just a little better, far better, infinitely better. And I am suddenly struck dumb by the critical importance of bankers’ hours and mundane deadlines. Anais Nin might not have picked up a pen until she was shaken to her core by a poetic seizure but I, blank, staring, disheartened I, might be saved by humdrum obligations. Outline the book by the end of August, even if it’s a mediocre outline. So that I can write a terrible, imperfect, actual draft by the end of the year.
Category: Practice
If your worst fear is writing the wrong thing, and then you write the wrong thing, there is much less to be afraid of. You realize the world doesn’t end. You feel terrible for a couple of days, and then you call your brother, the artist, and he says, I know what that’s like, when you’ve been working on a painting and you finally realize it’s time to stop, even though you never got it. And you call your agent, and he says, yeah, this is hard work, isn’t it?
When the worst thing has happened, there’s no more bartering, or striving, pleading or hoping. You just roll up your sleeves and start paying attention, being present, try to figure out where you are.
By quitting, I declare myself: I was not happy. That was not my world. That was not my voice. Which brings me one step closer to a world I want to write.
I don’t want to write the one perfect thing. I want to learn how to keep writing when this one isn’t working.
Downstairs I hear Jesse play, puttering and humming and singing and talking to himself, the faint clicks of him moving Lego pieces, the pop and hiss of his sound effects. Then my mother slap slaps into the living room, her velvet slippers smacking against the floor as she shuffles in, probably holding her tea. She stops by the table where he plays and starts asking a slew of questions: she found these Lego pieces by the door, does he want them? What is he building? When he doesn’t answer, she drifts into observation: it seemed, yesterday, that he didn’t know how to build this thing, but now it looks pretty good; it’s very cold out, isn’t it, it was cold when she went to bed, but now it’s even colder, it must certainly be turning into fall. Then more questions: does he want some breakfast, will he want breakfast when she comes back out again? I am in agony, listening to him try to answer politely. He just wants her to go away. Then she leaves, and he goes back to playing, and about five seconds after that, Käthe comes in— Hey, Badoodles. He doesn’t answer. She says it again. He doesn’t answer. She says it again, louder, sounding annoyed. He says, “Hey.” His privacy hard to maintain, with all these women around, trying to say good morning.