Gum Chewers, Police and Books
by Beckie Weinheimer
genre:
Literature & Fiction
description:
Do you as a writer suffer from sensory overload?
Are we just a type of human that takes everything in? And thus need to spew some of it out in the form of writint to keep sane?
chapters
chapter 1:
Do you suffer from Sensory overload?
Do you suffer from Sensory overload?
chapter 1
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updated 07/31/08
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5048 characters
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0 people liked it
10:10 AM PDT, July 25, 2008
*Note This is a first draft and I want to post even though I don't have time to clean it up. So now you can see what writer's first drafts look like. Please forgive typos, run on sentences, and well the rest of the messes.
The quote from the Bible about Seasons is one of my favorites. And this week has proved to me once again that in our lives there are many different times and seasons.
And for me, this week, this is a season not to write.
The summer has been crazy and the past several weeks have been spent getting my daughter's new apartment cleaned, painted and then all her belongings moved in including new furniture (do you know if you buy furniture on line, it often comes unassembled--very fun!) put together and into place. We were done last Saturday afternoon. On Sunday my husband and I put our place back together since our daughter had been living with us, and during that time many of our things had been put in storage.
Monday was a quiet day. It was going to be a quiet week. I was going to write and write, and write, and read and read and read, and take nice long walks in the park listening to a book on Audible.
And Monday I did write. I got another chapter of my new novel for adults (working title BOW YOUR HEAD AND SAY YES), written. I took a long walk in the park and listened to part of a Joyce Carol Oates book. I'd never read her before, just as I have never read many well known authors and that is because so much of my early life was spent, um, well, reading the Bible and other church literature. Very fun. But that is a topic for another day!
Then the call came. That evening, around eight p.m. Do calls about death ever come at a good time?
My brother in law, a man that over the years I had struggled to understand, fought with, teased with and finally become very close friends with had died. He was found in his apartment alone, dead for two days. His daughter and my daughter and my daughter's partner, my sort of like son in law, took care of the police and removal of the body, while my husband and I hurriedly packed and drove in the middle of the night from NYC to Washington DC.
I was crying and sobbing and sad and felt so cheated. And over the days several days even, now as I have been busy cooking for relatives making sure the sad are at least drinking water, cleaning, hugging my nieces and nephew, the sad adult children of my brother in law and cuddling the innocent grandchildren who have no idea where Grandpa is (I want to tell them me either), I during all this, occasionally I would find a few quiet moments to think.
One of the stories that sticks with me from my MFA days at Vermont College was one told by a mentor of mine, a wonderful writer, and human being, Ellen Howard. She told me the story of a famous author, and I can't remember his name, it was a man, who had stopped at the mirror to look at himself in the foyer before entering his father's funeral. He took a good long look at himself, because he wanted to remember how grief looked, so he could describe it later.
So many poignant emotional things have happened this week. I have not written, but yet the writer in me has not stopped. It's taking mental notes and I know much of what I am experiencing right now will end up in my writing. I have seen my daughter and her partner reaching out, stretching beyond what we normally have strength for as humans to give compassion and help. I have seen hurt by some turn into meanness. I've had friends of mine reach out in the dearest, most tender ways. I've seen grief that has left has left my niece rubbing at her painful migraine while she made decisions no twenty-something daughter should have to make. I've hugged my other silent crying niece and as we stood not speaking bound together as one, words seemed like a frivolous expenditure I could not afford to use. I saw my big strong nephew come in from the plane, and before we hugged we looked at each other and I knew for him, and for all of them it was too much, way too close to the recent death of their mother. And I knew he was being stoic right then as he gave me his famous welcome half smile I have always loved, but probably like at his mother's funeral he would completely fall apart. I saw it all in his eyes, and he saw that I saw it.
I used to be so anal about my writing I tried to write EVERY SINGLE DAY no matter what was happening in my personal life. And guess what, it didn't take too long to realize the writing I wrote on days like I've had this week, was total crap. I had to pitch it. So now I don't write when life is too full for me to spare time for the writing. But I live the writer's life. I take mental notes and I have come to know that writing is so much more than sitting down with pen and ink, typewriter or computer. It's observing, it's feeling, its watching the human interaction, it's smelling the flowers on the way to the subway, it's so many many wonderful things. It's sadness, it's joy, it's life, it's death.
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*Note This is a first draft and I want to post even though I don't have time to clean it up. So now you can see what writer's first drafts look like. Please forgive typos, run on sentences, and well the rest of the messes.
The quote from the Bible about Seasons is one of my favorites. And this week has proved to me once again that in our lives there are many different times and seasons.
And for me, this week, this is a season not to write.
The summer has been crazy and the past several weeks have been spent getting my daughter's new apartment cleaned, painted and then all her belongings moved in including new furniture (do you know if you buy furniture on line, it often comes unassembled--very fun!) put together and into place. We were done last Saturday afternoon. On Sunday my husband and I put our place back together since our daughter had been living with us, and during that time many of our things had been put in storage.
Monday was a quiet day. It was going to be a quiet week. I was going to write and write, and write, and read and read and read, and take nice long walks in the park listening to a book on Audible.
And Monday I did write. I got another chapter of my new novel for adults (working title BOW YOUR HEAD AND SAY YES), written. I took a long walk in the park and listened to part of a Joyce Carol Oates book. I'd never read her before, just as I have never read many well known authors and that is because so much of my early life was spent, um, well, reading the Bible and other church literature. Very fun. But that is a topic for another day!
Then the call came. That evening, around eight p.m. Do calls about death ever come at a good time?
My brother in law, a man that over the years I had struggled to understand, fought with, teased with and finally become very close friends with had died. He was found in his apartment alone, dead for two days. His daughter and my daughter and my daughter's partner, my sort of like son in law, took care of the police and removal of the body, while my husband and I hurriedly packed and drove in the middle of the night from NYC to Washington DC.
I was crying and sobbing and sad and felt so cheated. And over the days several days even, now as I have been busy cooking for relatives making sure the sad are at least drinking water, cleaning, hugging my nieces and nephew, the sad adult children of my brother in law and cuddling the innocent grandchildren who have no idea where Grandpa is (I want to tell them me either), I during all this, occasionally I would find a few quiet moments to think.
One of the stories that sticks with me from my MFA days at Vermont College was one told by a mentor of mine, a wonderful writer, and human being, Ellen Howard. She told me the story of a famous author, and I can't remember his name, it was a man, who had stopped at the mirror to look at himself in the foyer before entering his father's funeral. He took a good long look at himself, because he wanted to remember how grief looked, so he could describe it later.
So many poignant emotional things have happened this week. I have not written, but yet the writer in me has not stopped. It's taking mental notes and I know much of what I am experiencing right now will end up in my writing. I have seen my daughter and her partner reaching out, stretching beyond what we normally have strength for as humans to give compassion and help. I have seen hurt by some turn into meanness. I've had friends of mine reach out in the dearest, most tender ways. I've seen grief that has left has left my niece rubbing at her painful migraine while she made decisions no twenty-something daughter should have to make. I've hugged my other silent crying niece and as we stood not speaking bound together as one, words seemed like a frivolous expenditure I could not afford to use. I saw my big strong nephew come in from the plane, and before we hugged we looked at each other and I knew for him, and for all of them it was too much, way too close to the recent death of their mother. And I knew he was being stoic right then as he gave me his famous welcome half smile I have always loved, but probably like at his mother's funeral he would completely fall apart. I saw it all in his eyes, and he saw that I saw it.
I used to be so anal about my writing I tried to write EVERY SINGLE DAY no matter what was happening in my personal life. And guess what, it didn't take too long to realize the writing I wrote on days like I've had this week, was total crap. I had to pitch it. So now I don't write when life is too full for me to spare time for the writing. But I live the writer's life. I take mental notes and I have come to know that writing is so much more than sitting down with pen and ink, typewriter or computer. It's observing, it's feeling, its watching the human interaction, it's smelling the flowers on the way to the subway, it's so many many wonderful things. It's sadness, it's joy, it's life, it's death.
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