H
Books
Running Away and Other Vanishing Acts
It came out of the blue. A complete and stunning surprise. One minute I'm cruising along and the next I'm toast. It smacked into me at chore time. I was breaking up bread for the turkey when my husband casually mentioned that a friend of ours was talking about writing a book. Rage suddenly roiled through me and I thought "Oh, snap! Not another freakin' book." A flash fire flared and when it died away, the center pole of my life was ashes around my feet. In the time it took to hay the horses and grain everything else, I had mentally slammed the door marked writing.
It was startling and scary when I realized I didn't want words in my life. I didn't want to read, write, promote, or publish. Irritation loomed instead of enthusiasm when I talked with my circle of fellow authors. I couldn't muster up the support I had always given to anyone whose dream involved words. I didn't even care enough to even make a pretense of caring.
I stayed out of my office; ignored the notebooks stacked beside by my favorite corner of the couch, and traded in reading books with lots of words for looking at books with lots of pictures. But my hands weren't happy with nothing to do so I wandered into my craft room. Except for some holiday gift making, it was a place I had hung out less and less frequently over the passing years. Tidy stacks of UFOs (unfinished objects) sat abandoned. I rummaged about and, finally, picked up a whole cloth wall hanging I had been hand quilting from time to time. Looking at it, I was chagrined when I realized the amount of time (think years and years) that had passed since I bought it at Hancock Fabrics in Paducah, KY and how much remained to be stitched. I carried it downstairs, threaded a needle and began. Following the blue pattern trail, stitch after stitch, the writer was banished.
I stopped looking at writing blogs and discovered the enormous variety of blogs related to sewing, crocheting, knitting, baking, and crafting. Here people posted not only their successes but their failures…the pattern that didn't come together; the baking disaster; the project the dog chewed. And I became aware of a certain thread that ran through the blogs. It was a lemonade from lemons attitude. "Cake fell apart. Oh, well, it still tasted good." "Missed a whole row of the pattern, am unraveling and doing again." "Journal page failed. Adding some more paint and elements. Can't wait to see what emerges."
It was so different from the SERIOUS world of writing. A world that is almost militant in its regimentation of process. No wonder I had burned-out. Dedicated to trying to produce the best work I could, I had been packing along a huge, heavy backpack filled with someone else's "rules" of what that meant. I lost the process on the way to product.
As I wielded needle, thread, hook and yarn, my brain began to meld the two worlds. Picking the elements of a story is not much different than selecting a pattern, material, buttons, and trim. No seamstress is ever going to let the fact that the pattern is illustrated in green plaid stop her from choosing shocking pink polka dots or not stitching on pockets she doesn't want just because they are included. Yet writers are stopped dead time and again when they suddenly realize they are writing pink polka dots but the "experts" (i.e., anyone who has published a book on writing) says only green plaid is acceptable so you better write green plaid; and don't even think of bypassing those pockets.
Process is making one choice followed by the next on the arc from concept to finished product, but I had been unconsciously surrendering MY choices to the cacophony of "expert" voices stashed in my head. In measuring, cutting and stitching my words to fit their pattern, I had turned my passion into hard labor.
As the piles of UFOs began to dwindle, I met up once again with my writer self and together we pieced a lighter, brighter, more malleable atmosphere for her to work in. We're taking our new paradigm from the artisan world. "Story fell apart? Keep the delicious parts and dump the rest." "Concept not working? Unravel the story threads and cast on a different pattern." "Writing seems bland? Throw some more color at it." "If the whole thing ends up sucking, glue it together, paint it purple, sprinkle with glitter and use it as a door stop." "And always chose your own polka dots over someone else's plaid."
I'm back.
It was startling and scary when I realized I didn't want words in my life. I didn't want to read, write, promote, or publish. Irritation loomed instead of enthusiasm when I talked with my circle of fellow authors. I couldn't muster up the support I had always given to anyone whose dream involved words. I didn't even care enough to even make a pretense of caring.
I stayed out of my office; ignored the notebooks stacked beside by my favorite corner of the couch, and traded in reading books with lots of words for looking at books with lots of pictures. But my hands weren't happy with nothing to do so I wandered into my craft room. Except for some holiday gift making, it was a place I had hung out less and less frequently over the passing years. Tidy stacks of UFOs (unfinished objects) sat abandoned. I rummaged about and, finally, picked up a whole cloth wall hanging I had been hand quilting from time to time. Looking at it, I was chagrined when I realized the amount of time (think years and years) that had passed since I bought it at Hancock Fabrics in Paducah, KY and how much remained to be stitched. I carried it downstairs, threaded a needle and began. Following the blue pattern trail, stitch after stitch, the writer was banished.
I stopped looking at writing blogs and discovered the enormous variety of blogs related to sewing, crocheting, knitting, baking, and crafting. Here people posted not only their successes but their failures…the pattern that didn't come together; the baking disaster; the project the dog chewed. And I became aware of a certain thread that ran through the blogs. It was a lemonade from lemons attitude. "Cake fell apart. Oh, well, it still tasted good." "Missed a whole row of the pattern, am unraveling and doing again." "Journal page failed. Adding some more paint and elements. Can't wait to see what emerges."
It was so different from the SERIOUS world of writing. A world that is almost militant in its regimentation of process. No wonder I had burned-out. Dedicated to trying to produce the best work I could, I had been packing along a huge, heavy backpack filled with someone else's "rules" of what that meant. I lost the process on the way to product.
As I wielded needle, thread, hook and yarn, my brain began to meld the two worlds. Picking the elements of a story is not much different than selecting a pattern, material, buttons, and trim. No seamstress is ever going to let the fact that the pattern is illustrated in green plaid stop her from choosing shocking pink polka dots or not stitching on pockets she doesn't want just because they are included. Yet writers are stopped dead time and again when they suddenly realize they are writing pink polka dots but the "experts" (i.e., anyone who has published a book on writing) says only green plaid is acceptable so you better write green plaid; and don't even think of bypassing those pockets.
Process is making one choice followed by the next on the arc from concept to finished product, but I had been unconsciously surrendering MY choices to the cacophony of "expert" voices stashed in my head. In measuring, cutting and stitching my words to fit their pattern, I had turned my passion into hard labor.
As the piles of UFOs began to dwindle, I met up once again with my writer self and together we pieced a lighter, brighter, more malleable atmosphere for her to work in. We're taking our new paradigm from the artisan world. "Story fell apart? Keep the delicious parts and dump the rest." "Concept not working? Unravel the story threads and cast on a different pattern." "Writing seems bland? Throw some more color at it." "If the whole thing ends up sucking, glue it together, paint it purple, sprinkle with glitter and use it as a door stop." "And always chose your own polka dots over someone else's plaid."
I'm back.
The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes.
Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
