I have not been writing.
There, I confessed it.
As a writer, so-called, I am supposed to write. And I haven’t been.
That is not entirely true, however. I have written a great deal for myself. I just haven’t written for anyone else. I have not put words on the screen or paper for a specific book project, and I haven’t posted to a blog regularly.
And I’ve beat myself up over it and given myself excuses. Now it’s time to come out into light, explain myself, and move toward the discipline of writing for others and not just for exploration and self-styled therapy (or to inflict my ideas on those unfortunate enough to read them).
The Why
I published three novels in 13 months. In June 2023 I published Sudden Future with Colorful Crow. It has not done well. In March I published Long Lost Justice; it has not sold many copies either. In June 2024 Lying In came out. Due to intensive publicity and holding several events, it has done the best although I have sold fewer than copies than it should. It has also been submitted for one prize and will be for another (state-level). It has received many strong accolades. The publisher created a stunning cover for it and published it in hardback. I am proud of it.
Three novels in a year is, well, enough. Along with a stressful academic year, I experienced burnout for the first time in my life (and oh, yes, our first grandchild was born, so it’s been quite a year).
I just couldn’t put pen to paper in an organized, intentional, and purposeful way. It wasn’t from lack of ideas—those are never a problem for me. Something else was the matter, and perhaps still is, but I am going to power through it now. However, what were those something elses that kept me from producing?
The first was a flagging in my sense of calling. If this writing gig is a calling, wouldn’t I be more recognized for it? Have more bucks to show for it? More Amazon reviews, more people calling me for speaking engagements? I am being facetious here, sort of. Maybe I just stink at this fiction thing and my associates are too kind to tell me, I tell myself.
If it is a calling, the results will not always fall into a predictable pattern of success. John the Baptist was called; he was hardly a success by today’s, or any time’s standards. “It is required in a steward that a man be found faithful...”
The second was more existential. What is the point? Anything I write, well, there are plenty of other people writing books as good as or better than mine. The world doesn’t need another book really. We don’t need to kill any more trees to immortalize (facetious again) my ideas and words. Hundreds of thousands of books, at least, are published every year. One less won’t matter. My time could be better spent in . . . relationships. Or . . . gardening . . . or volunteer work. Yeah.
The third reason is a little more psychically based. It goes back to my years in fundamentalism which I am still both scarred and blessed by. Fundamentalist Christianity of the sort I lived through had a strong secular-sacred divide. The highest work is ministry, it taught; secular work was maybe necessary, not wrong, but just not as good. If I was really serving God, it would be in a ministry. I know, and knew at the time, that mindset is brutally wrong (brutally because it destroys so much of our creativity, self-worth, and response to God), but “there be ghosts.” Shadows of it remain; even though shadows are absolutely nothing in reality, they still frighten us, they still lead us astray. I hope I have banished them.
The fourth reason for my neglect was a desire to read others and research. The only problem there is that if I wasn’t settled on a project, my research and reading ended up scattered and randomized. I’ve read half of J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. I have read part of a book of scathing criticisms of it. I am reading a book about John C. Campbell and one he read. Appalachia fascinates me and that is one of the possible projects: novels about the women in my family and a response to J.D. Vance, who is not acquitted himself so well as a VP candidate. (Actually, neither of the four are impressing me right now.) I read a lot about writing. Writing the Mind Awake, about Proprioceptive Writing (very interesting); Break, Blow, Burn, and Make by E. Lily Yu and recently, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. In reference to the second, I was captivating yet so taken with the idea of writing only the highest quality output of eternal significance that I felt imprisoned and bound in my own insufficiency as a writer; captivated and captured at the same time. Is that next mystery worth writing, or my intellectual property about how a reality TV show shakes up a small town? Is it just fluff? In regard to The Artist’s Way, which I bought at the recommendation of a person close to me, I wondered if Cameron’s success is more about marketing than inspiring artists. And back to the first, I have found the proprioceptive prescriptions and rituals (candle, playing Baroque music) very helpful in bringing ideas to the surface; some of those ideas are personally disturbing.
I am also reading two books for work: Leaders Eat Last (Simon Sinek; I have my arguments with it so far) and Deep Work, by Cal Newport. And this last one is likely to change me the most, along with the writing rituals. Deep Work argues persuasively for turning off everything and isolating oneself, even if it means angering people, to have the solitude needed for intense concentration in difficult mental work—to achieve Flow, for example. To learn, to write, to solve seemingly intractable problems. I wish I had read it years ago, although inherently I knew it to be true already. Newport just frames it more authoritatively, perhaps.
I have also read several others things, or am in the process: Flannery O’Connor’s letters (in the Southern parlance, she was a mess), the James Herriot book All Creatures Great and Small (a master class in storytelling, even if he bends reality), a friend’s memoir (which need revising because it is very good, not because it is poor), and other bits and pieces. The reading has been profitable. I could say every minute reading is a minute I am not writing. I believe the reading was deeply needed.
However, I am emerging from my hiatus, my creative hibernation, my ennui, my sometimes dark night of the soul. This last is not an exaggeration; I can become quite aware of the unanswerable big questions and the futility of daily life, a result of spiritual myopia or clouded vision or just looking away from where one must look, the grace of Christ. Or I can stop being dramatic and admit it’s just laziness. Dateline reruns can be very compelling during summer school and 95 degree days when one’s septic system has to be replaced for thousands of dollars and the yard is completely torn up to replace the field lines.
The What
The following are the writing projects I hope to address in the next few years:
Three mystery novels in my series: one about the murder of a country singer from the town who has to stop touring during COVID; one about a cult; one about sexual abuse
A book on public speaking for lay people
A book with the working title: Higher Ed for Regular People, explaining college for people who haven’t gone or whose experience was long ago.
The story of my husband’s family’s
The story of the women in my mother’s family in Appalachian
Chemo ladies: four women who bond during chemo and their daughters
Foark River Tanning Salon and Bait Shop (based on a play I wrote)
And I have three or four other ideas for novels.
So which first? Probably the nonfiction, then Foark River.
The How
Several of the big barriers to my concentration have been remedied. I do have the time; it is a matter of cordoning it off and jealously protecting it. I believe in my calling and my giftedness although both need continued training. I believe that there is no limit to expression of creativity. The world may not need a book I write, but individuals do.
And I have a new computer! My MAC crashed (another minor crisis) but the technicians were able to salvage the files. This one is a refurbished business grade Dell with a full keyboard for my stout fingers and a 15-inch screen. I enjoy it, even if the software is open source and Microsoft-adjacent.
But tomorrow I watch my granddaughter while her momma teaches her Spanish class. We will have fun; she will play with my necklace and I will rock her until she sleeps on my shoulder, then she will amuse me and herself with her colorful toys and fuss when I try to get her to crawl. She will not cry inconsolably like she did at four months old; she knows me now and has gotten over separation anxiety.
In telling the story of the women in my family, I will tell the story of my tanned-skin nieta. She needs to know her “greats.”
Comentarios