Dear Erin,
Oh, I am really wishing I could have seen you at that party!
Of course, I wouldn’t have been any use to you, when it comes to avoiding embarrassment. You see, I do the opposite of you, when I come out of writing brain and find myself in social situations. Rather than spouting conversation and soaking up interaction, I usually find that I’ve lost all skill sets for communication completely.
Sometimes I’ll even find myself three or four sentences behind, narrating to myself the idea that actual life is happening in front of me, debating what my next normal contribution should be…
It’s almost as though I need to retrain myself to properly interact with people. Although “retrain” is perhaps not the right word, because one would have to be “properly trained” the first time for that to make sense.
I think the friends I do have are the ones that manage to survive the fact that I regularly glaze over and stare into the distance, five or ten minutes behind.
This week, I dealt with exactly that, as I’ve finished my current draft of my work in progress (almost) and am in need of beginning again (as usual). I’d pulled myself to the last chapter, but noted a slight difficulty in one important plot-line that needed to be dealt with by (sigh) starting back to the beginning (again). Rather than dealing with this appropriately I:
Took my five year old daughter (and three quarters, she’d add!) to get a Jamba Juice she had saved up her money for.
Reprinted the document and transferred it from Scrivener to Word (to see it differently).
And then debated reprinting it (once more) after transferring it to Word because (ah ha!) it actually did look different than it did in Scrivener.
The progress I’m making is obviously ginormous.
I have also written on a Sticky Note several ideas that must be attentively monitored throughout the next run-through of the manuscript, and so help me, I must somehow manage to monitor them all at once because I am ready to be done with this particular story post haste. I have lost the mood of it, and since mood is a lot to me in writing, I am finding that the story is getting further and further away from me, by the minute.
This may or may not have to do with the fact that my children have six weeks of school left, while I have five weeks of my current teaching schedule left. This may or may not have to do with the fact that I would much rather run away to join the circus than deal with any of it at all. (Although I wouldn’t really want to run away to the circus, because I’m pretty sure I’d have to work there too, so I would much rather run away to some other location where no one required anything of me at all.)
As an aside: do we have groceries for dinner tomorrow. No, we do not.
It turns out, I’m finding, that this ending thing is rather complicated. (It always is.)
On a related note:
Last Thursday I finally made it to my son’s Middle School Track Meet, the first I’ve attended since he joined the Track Team. (Honestly, the first I’ve attended since never.) Track Meets are interesting, I’ll have you know. Lots of events happen at the same time and nothing seems to be on any particular schedule. Pretty much, a bunch of 11-14 years olds are just running about jumping over obstacles and throwing stuff. Meanwhile, all the parents watch their own kids (if they remember to look up in time), talk to neighbors, and (in Idaho) cower under blankets with hats and mittens on.
But every once in a while the entire stadium does join together for a good uproarious clapping session.
This is when some (usually short) 11 year old attempt to run the hurdles (my Track Team terms are spot on, I’ll have you know) and fails. One particular girl, doing her very best, would even run at the hurdles, stop just before (when she realized she wasn’t going to make it), back up, run the hurdles a second time, and then scramble (inefficiently) over. To be honest, it was very awkward, quite without form, and it took forever.
(Is this sounding like my current writing to you? What are the odds?)
And yet, here was this stadium of inattentive, half-frozen parents, gallantly clapping and cheering each time she made it past another hurdle! By the time she got to the end of the eight or nine obstacles, all the parents had managed to realize something was happening and abandon their riveting conversations about whether it would finally be warm next week. And when she crossed the finish line (several minutes after everyone else) the entire stadium cheered. I’m not going to lie, the cheer wasn’t that loud (Track Meets are still not as well-attended as Football Games). But still!
The truth is, I think the end of my school year/work year/ manuscript are turning out to be a lot like that girl running the hurdles. I keep pitching myself at them, but then I come up a little short and need to try again. Somehow the energy I need to pull myself over those hurdles is turning out to be a bit hard to find. All of this to say that what I really need is a crowd of frozen people to clap me through it. You managed Monday again? Bravo!!! You made it Tuesday once more? Three cookies for you!!!! You spelled your main character’s name right and made the magic system sound like it made sense. Hurrah!!!
I keep telling myself the end comes either way. Just keep running. Just keep trying to jump. We’re going to make it. And by golly, someone is going to clap at the end.
Jamie
P.S. I have never read a horse novel. Once I started Black Beauty, but that didn’t last long. I think I started that Misty book too… though I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Can we still be friends? I have done cross-stitch, after all!
P.P.S I don’t think I ever picked up the thread about managing social interactions again, even though I inferred I would by stating: “This week, I dealt with exactly that” but since the point of this whole piece was me running into hurdles while trying to get to the ending, I think I’ll let it stand. Case in point, Erin. Case in point.