Joy and Angst at the Desk
I’ve had a rocky relationship with creative writing for a bit. I’ve been doing book marketing, as my patient and loyal readers know perhaps too well, between softly hammering at a manuscript, trying to beat out a better structure. The plot muse is shy. Really I haven’t been violent – just tapping – but it still seems the plot might need not force, but time to step into view. Maybe my problem wasn’t with writing, but that I was trying to write the wrong thing.
Yesterday I left my novel and worked on some new poems, with sunflowers in a vase at my side, faces down, but still bright. Is my quiet joy a sign I’m on the right track? I take it as such, though a friend recently told me about how labored her writing can feel. We discussed Plath and Van Gogh, depression and other illnesses, the risks of art and the world. My friend says her journal is the one place where writing feels good. There she can say what she wishes, run on about whatever steps in her path. And sometimes what steps in can be used for other ongoing work.
Are you someone who loves to write or who hates it, though perhaps finds some pleasure in having the writing be done? For my teacher friends, how much is happiness or hard times at the desk part of your conversation about writing? I generally say I like writing and I generally do. But writing is a long road. I like getting ideas and I like tying them up, but there are places in the middle where my pen sticks and my breath stutters. These are parts I have to get through, like the tree pose in yoga, in order to enjoy the stretches at the beginning and end of the class. Those middle parts may need a little will power or its more fun-loving sister, obsessiveness, to power through. Or perhaps we need to give ourselves a break, look up or down for beauty along the way, which is what we mostly have.
These days I miss having a four-legged companion on my walks, butI keep my eye open for dogs who seem to be looking for a moment of admiration and owners who are willing to stop for strangers to hold out a hand to be sniffed. I told one dog, “You’re so cute and so good,” and the woman with the dog replied, “That is a dog’s Namaste.” We may look forward to writing “the end!” or hear benedictions or those The-light-in-me-sees-the-light-in-you’s, but really may best stop in the midst and call them up.
