On Becoming a Writer (Again): A Progress Report of Habits
Clean desk.
Hours to complete: about 4.
Renew library card. Check out library books.
First checkout from the library: 2 books. Second checkout from the library: 1 book. Latest checkout from the library: about 14 books.
Read more fiction for pleasure.
- Read Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist, a few stories from Miranda July’s No One Belongs Here More Than You. Laughed over one, puzzled over the other (perhaps am not hip enough? a high probability).
- Tried to read Sonya Chung’s Long for this World, but had to return it to the library. Want other people to read this book—it looks like it will be important, transnational, historically relevant. But early in the book, had this terrible feeling that a feverish child was going to die. Couldn’t go on.
Read nonfiction writing.
Just finished Julia Child’s memoir My Life in France. An inspiration.
Resurrect the quote journal for inspiration.
Taste these from My Life in France:
• “the pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite” (302)
• “how lovely life can be if one takes time to be friendly” (66)
• “I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.” (67)
Carry several notebooks and pens around with you.
- Saw my writer friend R’s clothbound journal a few weeks ago: the cover soft, lovely, well-worn like an heirloom quilt. Want my notebook to be like that: used, not reserved for special occasions, like fancy china behind glass cabinet doors.
- Using one of those hardbound blank journals that had been a Christmas gift. Having that notebook is like having a camera: not only are moments and thoughts that much easier to document, but having the journal is itself a lens and a mandate.
Read books on writing.
- Started Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. It’s been recommended reading for writers, but all can think about, at least in this early part of the memoir, is “No wonder he writes horror novels.”
- Started worrying about some of the different neuroses associated with writers: the sullen solitary, the competitive wit, the narcissistic venom, the icicle-forming insecurity. (Note to self: do not confuse writers with anonymous YouTube or newspaper commenters.) Thought about the writer who reads other writers and always loses in self-judged beauty writing contests. Always the bikini round, not the interview, that wins the day.
- Wondered if this worrying about worrying is a writer’s characteristic.
Write.
- Blog posts: 19
- Status updates on Facebook and Twitter: probably too many.
- Typed letter to a friend: 1
Revise.
- Posted first drafts on the blog, then second and third and fourth drafts.
- Reflected more on earlier entries, such as the one about the act of loaning out and returning library books. Although still struggling to love abundantly, wonder if my love of owning books may be actually less about generosity and more about the idea of hoarding something. You hoard something that you love because you worry that it will be taken away from you.
- Tried to remove as many “I”’s from this post as possible.
Grades:
1. Collaged the lists, wrote, revised the first assignment into a linear story.
2. Oldest daughter commandeered one notebook from my purse, while we were waiting at the airport. She’s started to write and illustrate her first narrative book.
3. Opened my dad’s manuscript; had been scared to reread it; haven’t read it in over 25 years.
4. Woke up with a filmic ending of a story. Had never met the boy and girl characters, though had seen that particular off-ramp to downtown Seattle many times over. Two balloon releases. Not sure why. Wanted to know how the characters got to that image. Started to dream in fiction.
It does seem that writers worry but is that what helps you go deeper, to write what is under the surface? Just a thought.
Probably very true, yes, Juliann. Or, it’s what stops us from writing. Or–very likely–both. 😉