the blank white page

you know, letters.

as in, taking a physical writing implement into your human hand to put marks of some sort on an actual piece of paper that came from a tree, or at least a plant.

foreign and exotic, yes. and we haven’t even gotten to the part about the postal service. (no, not the band.)

why letters?

letters, to put it simply, rock. there is something intangible in their tangibility, just as there is something empty about email, at least email as it exists in a world without letters. maybe it’s nothing more than plain old nostalgia, but here’s a list of why i love letters:

palpable luxury

the luxury part coming from the time and thought that must necessarily go into a letter. handwriting is slower than typing; unlike email, letters tend to get read and re-read. you can touch the words, if you want. and then there’s the fact that someone you love or at least like enough to have as a pen pal held this letter in their hand before sending it to you. maybe it still smells like them.

there is still value in tracking a thought to its completion

can you do this? i can’t, not always. if you close your computer and turn off your cell phone before starting, letter writing allows you to. thoughts have more time to form and ripen, even if we’re talking a difference of seconds or milliseconds. but ideally the letter writer has a good window to stare out of, and something steaming to sip, to fully embrace this rare opportunity to think and communicate at the same time. i believe there is an inherent value in communicating this way. it is a form of therapy for both sides, even if what you manage to affix to the page is only the purest of drivel.

getting a letter in the mail

don’t get me wrong, i write letters because i find it to be an enjoyable act. i like starting with a clear desk and clean piece of paper. i like how it forces me to picture the person to whom i am writing and to consider the nature of our friendship and the interests and pasts we have in common. and i never write with the actual expectation that i will get something in return. i do it because i like to and because i consider the letter a gift. but that doesn’t mean that i don’t allow myself to hope for reciprocation. because getting a real letter in your mailbox is a truly joyous event. it will make your day, i guarantee it. if you have never gotten one, or haven’t gotten one in years, you really should try it. and the only way to have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting one is to write one yourself.

so this new year has me resolving to be a writer – that is, one who writes. not one who thinks about writing, or wishes she was writing, or regrets not having written, but one who actually gets up in the morning and puts words on a page. (also, not one who merely resolves to do this.)

so what is it going to take? because, i mean, tick tock. i’m not getting any younger over here. not to mention that i don’t get to write a blog on writing if i’m unable to actually write myself.

the solution? bribery. i have determined that i must write in the mornings before the children are awake because that’s the only time it’s going to get done and that’s when real writers write, IMO. so every morning that i get up at 6 and start working on The Catbirds without dicking around and without going back to bed, i get $3 towards this cappuccino maker. at which rate it will take about 30 days, the length of time it takes to form a habit, by many accounts.

so far? the last two mornings i’ve gotten a dollar for effort. as in yesterday i got up early but didn’t get the chance to write due to child-related issues, and this morning i wrote for a bit but then went back to sleep for an hour. yes, pathetic, but i have to reward my effort and any progress made towards the goal. the goal being: i want to be one of those writers who has to get up at a certain time each morning to write as a sort of physical necessity. like, no matter what time i went to bed the night before or where i am. i want it to become a part of my circadian rhythm, like a bowel movement. that is the goal.

i have been trying to come to terms lately with the idea of myself as a perfectionist. and mostly with how that’s not a good thing to be. i’ve never thought to label myself a perfectionist before, because in the culture i was raised in, that’s kind of a compliment, you know? someone with high standards, who does everything right, someone who’s perfect. but the thing is, of course, is that no one’s perfect. so that the definition of a perfectionist isn’t “someone who’s perfect” but rather “someone who aspires to perfection” and that, my friends, is the recipe for depression, paralysis, and cripplingly low self esteem. the reason that it wouldn’t occur to me to call myself a perfectionist today is that the word “underachiever” comes to mind first. but why is that? it’s because my perfectionism hasn’t allowed me to risk trying anything for years, or maybe a lifetime.

and let me tell you, this if-i-can’t-do-it-right-i-won’t-do-it-at-all attitude stands squarely between me and almost all of the writing that i want to do. because i have incredibly high standards for writing, for my own and in general, and it is painful to reread something and discover that something i wrote falls (sometimes woefully) short of the mark. but why? who cares, really? because i am so invested in some pipe dream of myself as a “good writer”? and what does that mean? good compared to whom? there will always be better writers and worse writers, so why obsess? why not just write whatever it pleases me to write?

and what about the part of writing where it makes me happy to make things better? that would fall away completely if everything i shat out onto the page were pearls of stunning brilliance. part of the whole POINT of writing is to make drafts and make them better and to wrestle with the writing and the ideas behind it. and if i can’t enjoy the process, then why do it?

one of my ideas in starting this blog was to put it all out there. write a novel online, warts and all, and see what happens. i no longer know if this is a good idea and so am stalling about posting any fiction. shouldn’t the writing live a very secret and sequestered life until it is ready to see the light of day? shouldn’t i do my utmost to HIDE my first efforts, since they will no doubt expose me as a very bad writer and a delusional nut? the answer to both of those questions is, unfortunately, probably a resounding yes. but here’s the thing: the writing needs to A) get done and B) go somewhere. by which i mean if i don’t do something drastic like post things online, ask others to hold me accountable for my long stretches of not writing, and get some (much needed) feedback on the damn thing, it’s not going to ever see the light of day anyway because it will either A) not exist or B) never reach the state where i feel like it’s good enough to show anyone.

but posting it online feels scary. how embarrassing! and then there’s the delusional 180: what if someone steals it? (same way i feel about our 1992 nissan maxima with 210,000 miles on it — it has a car alarm, by the way.)

but so i’ll post something. just to shake things up. not because it’s wise or smart, but because it feels like progress.

there must be a way, but i don’t know what it is yet. don’t know what my way is yet. i don’t yet have a snazzy remedy for the feeling of sitting there in front of the blank white page while someone pours concrete into my bones and the fatigue and apathy is so thick i can barely see my hand in front of my face. is this where practice and habit kicks in? or where i need to remember, “self-discipline is simply remembering what you really want”? (not my quote, don’t know whose.) and is it possible to use this writing about it as a way to overcome it? though i am as yet only writing this to the internet ether, i am more than open to ideas.

here is how writing went this morning:

9:00 – journaled for ten minutes about random crap and writing
9:10 – bathroom break
9:12 – re-read the 3000 words i have so far of the second draft, (which hasn’t been touched in many months), decided to think about direction. thought about it. typed a few notes about characters, what i know about them. typed out a few scene ideas for the immediate next steps. felt a chill from the top of my head spread over my body, then it turned warm. felt sleepy, but recognized that the sleepiness is a common resistance pattern that i have whenever i start working on the baby. fought it for a bit, tried to wrap my mind around this thing i’m trying to do (what is that again?).
9:34 – decided to write about this process here. and here are my thoughts, in no particular order.

- it is useful to think about the resistance as resistance, a la Seth Godin, i.e. something that my “lizard brain” is using to keep me where i am because where i am is safe. (somehow. to it.) because if i fought through the sleepiness and succeeded in tapping into the awesome, or at least dipping into the hunk of clay that could at some point become the awesome, then it could change everything, even me. and there are lots of unknowns about that. but that is the direction we need to move in, people. because the known, as it stands now (dreary job, no creative outlet, no acknowledgment whatsoever by me or anyone else that who i want to be is a writer of words i can stand behind and not this), is pretty lame.

- an interesting willingness on my part this morning to just let things be. i do not have to try to sledgehammer my way through 1000 more words, just to get the golden daily wordcount. i wrote the first draft largely on this method, forcing myself to produce words, a certain number that seemed to always be changing, on a daily basis, or else. not sure about the usefulness of this tactic, except that the writing that came out of it was by no means my best work. i did not sit down and write those 1000 words from a very inspired place, in other words. so today, and going forward, perhaps it is enough to just hold the baby’s hand, as i think annie dillard once wrote. (she didn’t call it the baby.) visit the baby every day, remind myself that it’s there, that it needs me, and that i need it. and let the fragile ideas come, the awesome ones. the ones that are deathly afraid of sledgehammers.

the dilemma is this: i feel (mostly theoretically) compelled to write fiction, but i barely ever read it. now, i USED to read it, used to inhale it actually, but no more. why? is it me? is it the times? is there something about the persistent, relentless non-fiction of the internet and blogs and self-help-you-out-of-the-hole-you-climbed-into that precludes the possibility or capability of being immersed in and schooled by someone else’s fictional creation? in my own case, yes, but also: so little grabs me anymore. i read first paragraphs and can’t bring myself to read more. the last exception: 2666. made me want to write. that is the highest compliment i can pay any book of fiction. most fiction makes me want to NOT write, makes me want to NOT be part of that particular problem.

but write i seemingly must. started to itch all over my body a short while ago, and according to this book i read called Awakening Intution, i started watching my dreams for a sign. premise of the book is that your physical issues are manifestations of emotional things you are avoiding. had a dream about eggs, cracked eggs, and my sleeping brain explained to me IN WORDS that the meaning of the eggs was that it’s time to move things forward. meaning the writing. meaning this blog and meaning the cat story. haven’t itched for two days, go figure.

how do you know if you’re a writer? are you one if you’re good at it? and good according to whom? and what if you’re only sometimes good at it and sometimes your writing sucks? do you know you’re a writer because you love to write? (and on a side note: do we really need the label — “writer”?) it can be a challenge to admit that you are indeed a closeted writer because most of the time writing hurts – hurts so good, john cougar – but hurts nonetheless. and yet, during the periods of time that you’re not doing it — all of the days, months, years, sometimes decades — you feel somehow that you are frittering your life away, because you aren’t working on your piece of serious literary fiction that you’ll never get right and no one to speak of would ever read even if you did. crazy, no? because when you hear tell of successful (“successful”) people doing what they love, their love for their chosen field usually seems unequivocal. this lady loves to bake cakes, or that dude loves decorating, and this other one loves selling things, no matter what they are. someone just wants to spend their life playing the guitar, and when you leave him to his own devices, THAT IS ACTUALLY WHAT HE DOES. why is it with writing that those of us who feel called to write will paradoxically do almost anything in our power to get out of it? just wondering.