Catherine Egan's Blog - Posts Tagged "playing"
First Drafts: Some Final Thoughts
Dear Blog,
I remember asking my mother, when I was five or six years old: “When do you play?” I was behind her and she was at the sink, wearing an apron. Doing dishes, or washing vegetables? I think it was before supper. She said something breezy about how she was playing all the time inside her head, letting her imagination wander and tell her stories. But I felt terribly sorry for her. It seemed to me she was always busy doing something chore-like, and we were always playing, and of course, that’s exactly how it was.
Now that I am technically an adult, and have children of my own, chore-like things threaten to take over my life, and my kids are always playing. Their play is intense and important, to them and to me. Building lego towers, hiding from dragons under the covers, fighting bears, making leaf piles or snow men, taking a tour of the solar system in the rocket ship under the dining table: they are so busy, so completely caught up in it. And there is, always, this chorus: Play with me, mom! Play with us!
I have to confess that, while I love to be part of their fun, I do not, myself, enjoy waving a stick at an imaginary bear, or crouching under the kitchen table and commenting on how big and smelly Jupiter is. Lego, likewise, bores me. I do like leaf piles and snowmen and the world without walls in general, which is why we go outside as much as possible. But even then – I wouldn’t build a snowman by myself, for my own pleasure, anymore.
But if my kids ever ask me, concerned, when I play, I will tell them that when I say I am "working," when I am seated at my computer and typing faster than I can think (I don’t think very fast), that is when I am most at play.
The revision process is crucial to creative satisfaction, but it is hard. It is work, albeit my favourite kind of work. First-drafting, on the other hand, feels an awful lot like my adult version of running outside and creating an imaginary world for my younger brother and next-door-neighbour, who were always eager and willing to be the heroes of whatever story I was concocting. Playing was what I wanted to be doing whenever I was doing something else, and I pitied my mother so desperately for not having time for it in her busy days. As soon as I got home from school, as soon as supper was over, as soon as we were released from whatever chores we had to do, there was this bubbling up of excitement and impatience. And I feel exactly the same way now. As lunch wears on and the boys are munching oh so slowly, wanting more of this and none of that, squabbling and chatting, asking for stories and songs, I start getting more and more foot-tappy and irritable. I bundle LittleK into bed as soon as he is done eating, set the clock for LittleJ’s Quiet Time (which is not particularly quiet but that sounds nicer than don’t-bug-me-time, and I am ashamed to say it precedes a movie on the kindle), put on the coffee, open my computer, and there, there – I am running outdoors, bursting with story. This is playing.
Yours, cheerfully after a few very good writing days,
Catherine
I remember asking my mother, when I was five or six years old: “When do you play?” I was behind her and she was at the sink, wearing an apron. Doing dishes, or washing vegetables? I think it was before supper. She said something breezy about how she was playing all the time inside her head, letting her imagination wander and tell her stories. But I felt terribly sorry for her. It seemed to me she was always busy doing something chore-like, and we were always playing, and of course, that’s exactly how it was.
Now that I am technically an adult, and have children of my own, chore-like things threaten to take over my life, and my kids are always playing. Their play is intense and important, to them and to me. Building lego towers, hiding from dragons under the covers, fighting bears, making leaf piles or snow men, taking a tour of the solar system in the rocket ship under the dining table: they are so busy, so completely caught up in it. And there is, always, this chorus: Play with me, mom! Play with us!
I have to confess that, while I love to be part of their fun, I do not, myself, enjoy waving a stick at an imaginary bear, or crouching under the kitchen table and commenting on how big and smelly Jupiter is. Lego, likewise, bores me. I do like leaf piles and snowmen and the world without walls in general, which is why we go outside as much as possible. But even then – I wouldn’t build a snowman by myself, for my own pleasure, anymore.
But if my kids ever ask me, concerned, when I play, I will tell them that when I say I am "working," when I am seated at my computer and typing faster than I can think (I don’t think very fast), that is when I am most at play.
The revision process is crucial to creative satisfaction, but it is hard. It is work, albeit my favourite kind of work. First-drafting, on the other hand, feels an awful lot like my adult version of running outside and creating an imaginary world for my younger brother and next-door-neighbour, who were always eager and willing to be the heroes of whatever story I was concocting. Playing was what I wanted to be doing whenever I was doing something else, and I pitied my mother so desperately for not having time for it in her busy days. As soon as I got home from school, as soon as supper was over, as soon as we were released from whatever chores we had to do, there was this bubbling up of excitement and impatience. And I feel exactly the same way now. As lunch wears on and the boys are munching oh so slowly, wanting more of this and none of that, squabbling and chatting, asking for stories and songs, I start getting more and more foot-tappy and irritable. I bundle LittleK into bed as soon as he is done eating, set the clock for LittleJ’s Quiet Time (which is not particularly quiet but that sounds nicer than don’t-bug-me-time, and I am ashamed to say it precedes a movie on the kindle), put on the coffee, open my computer, and there, there – I am running outdoors, bursting with story. This is playing.
Yours, cheerfully after a few very good writing days,
Catherine
