Wanting It
Dear Karen,
It is Saturday. I went to bed last night excited about getting up in the morning and writing. I did not wake up that way. Instead I woke up wanting to sleep more, to dream more, to laze around more. But I reminded myself that this is what I want. I had to remind myself two or three times, like a snooze alarm whose button I kept pressing.
I think that in order to actually write, you have to really want it. This is true of anything. In order to play the drums you have to really want to play the drums. In order to change your oil in the car you have to want to do it. In order to know how to program a computer, or cook a meal, or perform brain surgery you have to want it. Writing is no different. You have to want it, and once you’ve got it, you have to keep on wanting it.
My wanting has been sagging lately, except I really do want it. Maybe I want it too much. Maybe I’m placing too much expectation on it. I once saw a baby wearing a onesie on which was written, “Future Brain Surgeon.” I was kind of horrified, but perhaps I am doing this to my baby too. Maybe the trouble I am having is that I label every work before it’s begun, and after it’s completed, “Future Bestseller.”
I love stories. I love the puzzle of piecing them together. I love the visitation of characters and the process of developing an intuitive relationship with them. But it’s easy, very easy, to forget that I want it. It’s very easy to say, I don’t want it anymore. It’s too hard. I need money. I’m tired.
Lately my world has been filled with a lot of voices. The voice of the plumber on the phone after the hot water heater busted and flooded our closets last weekend. The voice of my computer no longer receiving my commands. The voice of a companion’s health scare. The voice of a nail in my tire that tap, tap, tapped on the pavement as I drove one block and then turned around and came back home. Loudest of all, the voice of paying bills and making a living. The problem for me is not how to write while also dealing with the curve balls life inevitably throws, but how to want to write.
This morning I hauled my skin-self out of bed, made my coffee, and sat at my desk. Usually this makes me write. It did this morning. I wrote. I wrote words. I created sentences. They even made sense. But I still don’t feel like I’m on the highway of story. I still don’t feel like I’ve found the path of this one, that sure place through the woods that I know, once found, will never be lost as long as I visit it every day, that place I am instantly dropped into by just sitting at the desk and opening the computer.
I love that place of story, where I can step with my bare feet, feeling for the stones and the roots and the smoothness, assured that while I don’t know everything about this story, I am on the path. Right now I feel that every time I write I have to hack my way through a jungle to reach the path, and then I’m not sure if it’s the path or just a path. I know that the hacking through the jungle is part of finding what I am looking for, but so is getting quiet and not living in chaos and listening to the character speak to me.
Some characters are quieter than others. This one is quiet. She wants me to give her more attention than I have been able to. I want that too. I am looking forward to that. I want this. I really do.
It is a miracle that any character would visit me at all. Why would they? Surely there are writers out there who are more likely to bring their stories to print. I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not a character, I’m just a writer, and I want to accept what comes my way, graciously, gratefully, and by sitting at my desk listening for the story.
Love – Nancy
