Thanks, No Thanks, and Thanks Again

Again, thank you to everyone who sent good thoughts our way while my mother was in the hospital. She came home earlier this week, and the dogs couldn’t be happier.

~*~

The novel and I are talking again. It’s awkward.

Left to my own devices, I’m delighted. I’m seeing things in my head again, feeling my characters, and I’ve managed to get at least some words written in some kind of order since mom came home. I care about my story and want to tell it. Writing it makes me happy.

But I’m also frustrated. I really feel like the work I’m doing now should have been happening months ago. I hate feeling like I’ve wasted time, but every time I look at the calendar, I feel embarrassed at how long I’ve been supposedly “working on a novel” for how little I actually have on the page.

Before any of you leave kind words on this point in an effort to try to make me feel better about myself, don’t. I’ll be proud of my achievements and secure in the knowledge that I’m a good writer when I prove it. With the possible exception of my failure thus far to actually do the thing, my self-esteem is fine.

It’s just that it’s difficult to focus on output when I’m having a lot of anxiety over working on this thing in a workshop context. I really don’t want to workshop at the moment.

For me, writing is similar to working through something emotionally troubling. There are times I desperately need to discuss a story so that I can figure out what makes it tick. There are also times that I don’t want to talk about it at all because it’s still too delicate or personal, and a persistent querent who doesn’t get the hint can make it difficult for me to make contact with my work again.

It’s not just that I get angry or upset, though I do (and then I spend weeks feeling both offended at the querent for trampling all over my boundaries and appalled at myself for being an asshole in return). It also seems to frighten those parts of me that do a lot of the writing and sends them to take shelter in the sub-basement until it feels safe to come back up.

That can take some time and coaxing. I’ve got a whole toolbox for this kind of thing, but it’s an abuse of my whole person to take the position that it’s inevitable and I should just deal with it. One doesn’t disturb a souffle unnecessarily, or a chrysalis. One shouldn’t do it with my novel, either.

And yet, tomorrow night I’m scheduled to walk head first into a situation that my imagination is casting as Invasive Querent Island. The last touchbase featured an unwelcome interrogation, and I spent more energy than I like to admit feeling angry because both finishing and not-finishing the novel would be Letting Someone Else Win.

And then everyone came out of the sub-basement and reminded me that not-finishing sucks more, and that what we really needed to do was work on this scene, etc. It’s so good. I don’t want Sunday night to wreck it.

The trick, I think, comes down to choosing my attitude. I can go in still angry, expecting to get knocked down again, and let it be a bad experience, or I can put on my big kid pants and go in ready to see what works and what doesn’t, secure in the knowledge that these people are my friends, and that in the end I get to choose what advice to keep.

I know which one sounds better to the folks downstairs.

~*~

Links. Woo-hoo.

Offered without comment: 13-Inch Travelocity Gnome

Kitties Rescued by US Marine Soldiers in Afghanistan.

Because it’s been brightening my day for about the last 14 hours or so, the video for Erasure’s cover of ABBA’s “Take A Chance On Me.” Those of you who know the reference, say it with me: Poptastic Danceability.

Speaking of dancing, I bring you the best G20 protest moment ever. Well, certainly it’s among the most non-violent. I feel weird saying it made me smile.

Possibly of interest to people reading: Survey on Divorce and Handparting for Wiccans and neopagans.

The Mark of a Masterpiece, being a really fantastic article from The New Yorker about art fakery, authentication, and what the standards really are for deciding what’s real and what isn’t.

DADT: The DoD Survey A pagan perspective on the current DOD survey on DADT.

Of Death and the Gender Binary Masculinity, suicide, and the problems/benefits that come of how we draw the lines.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com

I'm a twit. These are my tweets.

( Scintillating, innit. )