Erin,
Two things I must reply to immediately: that frigidly air-conditioned space you speak of? My daughters and I call that: Fake Winter. Oh, how I hate Fake Winter. The idea that I could manage to survive another Real Winter, scrabbling my way toward the warmth of Hallowed Summer and then have air-conditioning ruin it all! Terrible!! It’s true, I carry a jacket with me everywhere in the summer to combat this awful experience, but I still resent the appearance of air-conditioning. I realize it matters in places like Houston, where you grew up, but I am not completely sure it belongs in places like Idaho at all.
Second: your magazine series, Castles and Courtyards? My goodness, I am wanting to see editions of that! My cousin and I had publications of our own when we were little, but nothing with columns featuring the Earl of Huntingdon. I can’t believe we missed out on his sage words of wisdom. The best I did was to redesign the Disney logo in my free time, although I never did receive payment…
It’s interesting you bring up time and our efforts to turn those trickling minutes into words. One of the first lessons I had to learn in our MFA program was to accept my brainstorming as product. My first semester advisor, Cory McCarthy, insisted I write down the time I spent brainstorming and ruminating. Cory wanted all of it “to count.” I wasn’t sure I believed Cory, that time could be frittered in that way. With six children on the loose, my minutes are pulled away from the jaws of death on a regular basis. But it turned out that thinking made my time more productive (seems obvious to me now) and that planning out my story meant less mistakes later. I am, apparently, not a genius capable of churning out hundreds of words that actually make sense on the first go. Tragic.
But I also get what you’re saying about the jolt of energy a writer gets from having their words actually make an impact on another individual. On the importance of making the words exist, instead of staring at a wall and thinking about them for days on end. From convincing dear friends to embrace adventure and the whimsical, to allowing a reader to see themself in story, that’s the point of this whole game, isn’t it? Not just notebooks full of ideas.
The truth it, there are days I wonder if I should have taken up painting sixteen years ago, when I pulled out my computer and began my first “real” efforts to write. It seems that might be a common thing, from what you’re saying. Paintings exist, after all, much more concretely than innumerable files on a computer. I’ve been watching a series about artists lately, which you can find here and I love to see what they’ve created and hear their reasoning behind the work they do, their hopes for who their work will impact. Even when I find their artwork mildly confusing, the people themselves, and what they hope to say, are most interesting of all.
But I suppose what I’m saying is that their stories are what interests me, and that’s the trouble isn’t it? I can’t let the story go, even if it only exists on my computer.
Maybe, in the end, time will make all the difference. I’ve learned they may be changing kindergarten in our school this fall, transitioning from half-day to full. My youngest is heading off this year and I am confronted with the suddenly possibility that all my children might vacate the house from 8:00 am until 3:00 pm. That’s seven hours, if you want to know the math. Seven hours, contingent on a governor’s signature, and a school board’s final decision.
When I found out, I was, quite frankly, stunned. I vacillated back and forth between horror at Tilly being gone that long, almost without warning, to euphoria at the idea of All That Blessed Time. Can you imagine? Seven entire hours? It turns out I can’t. Not quite. I’ve never had that type of time in my pocket. The biggest run I’ve had is three hours, and it seems like I just barely manage to drop inside the flow of words when that chunk of minutes comes to an end.
I’m aware, of course, that those seven hours would make every attempt possible to wriggle out of my grasp. Doctor appointments, bathrooms that insist on being cleaned, paid work demanding proper attention. But it seems like, with seven hours to start with, I might be able to hold onto a few more minutes. A few more minutes to try to tell a story. A few more minutes to try to touch a soul. A few more minutes to meander myself to something real.
But in the meantime, while we await the sudden bestowal of time and the apparent floodgates of writing it would release (cough, cough) here’s what I think we should do: I think we should find a piece of writing we love and print it out. I think we should put it in a frame, and hang it on a wall. I think we should let our words be paintings, and that we should allow it to touch at least ourselves.
Maybe we need a concrete form to appreciate the work we’ve done? Maybe we need to tell Fake Winter and Fake Oblivion we don’t accept them? That we have sweaters and printers to combat their awfulness and we know the reality of both summer and of what we’ve created. It’s a mind game we writers play, and we have to be good at it. We have to push away the lies of the outside world and insist we know the truth.
I’m fairly sure the Earl of Huntingdon would agree.
Jamie
7 hrs a day is glorious! But it goes by way too fast…