Friday, July 17, 2009

Begin.

A simple two syllable word.

To begin means...action, movement, motion and it's all reaching towards an end. You begin so that you can end.

And as simple as that concept should be, it is a profoundly difficult thing for me.

How many days has my very unfinished manuscript sat on the dining room table amidst my boyfriend's books, and dictionaries and DVDs and cups and whatever else he has there?

I dunno. Four. Fourteen.

I walk past it, you know? I'll have a cup of water in my hand and some grapes and I'll look at it, and it'll look at me. And I'll pretend that I didn't see it--and it'll pretend that it didn't see me just looking at it.

Maybe I do need some direction with that. But God, I feel...so guilty sometimes--all the time when I do that. Last night was a free night for me. Izz was with her dad's family and I was home. And when I got home yesterday, instead of taking a shower and writing...I took a shower and fell asleep. And then Eric came home and made dinner...and I ate...and then I went back to bed again...frusterated, bored and...you guessed it...guilty.

It was sitting right there. And I did nothing. And I'm thinking 'oh here we go with this again.'

I don't know how I imagine a writer's life to be. But I know how this one's life is. I get distracted very easily sometimes. And it's not like the ideas aren't there. It's not like I don't have anything to write. I do. I just don't see an end in sight.

I'm not eternally optimistic.
I know how to write a good query letter.
I know how to write a good book.

After the miscarriage...my steps forward have been minimal even though every waking moment has been...filled with thoughts of writing--hoping I can pull some inspiration from somewhere--hoping to kick this feeliing of apathy into the bucket once and for all.

This is reality folks. It isn't always an image of some dedicated writer pounding the keys late into the night--dedicating nights and nights and hours and hours to the craft. Sometimes the writer is doing absolutely nothing...

...like eating grapes and dripping water down your shirt while staring at nothing out the livingroom window.

2 comments:

Seppy said...

The best writing comes from writing when you have to write, not when you -have- to write.

The difference?

Walking past a blank sheet of paper and dropping everything because you HAVE to fill it with all these words that are inside of you- these moments and stories and ideas that are possessing your body and mind and making it impossible to do anything else but.. write,

And the alernative..

Walking past the paper that has been sitting there for days and forcing yourself to put words out there that you may not mean, or feel.

The best things I have read that come from you are the things you wrote because you had to, not because you -had- to.

(Ya, just try to make sense of that mess...)

Alicia Evans said...

Actually, it made perfect sense, but your 'messes' always seem to when it comes to me.

I might be ready to write today. I don't know.

It's going to rain...and that always puts me in the mood to write for some reason.