Se Hace Camino Al Andar

It took me a long time tonight, after putting Alice to bed, to come down enough from the energy of the day to sit and write. I find that I need a transition between the day’s events and beginning to write. I’m not the best at articulating my needs, and it took a bit of struggle to make it known to my poor husband what I needed. I’m not even sure now that I was at all successful in conveying my need for silence and space.  One thing that I’m discovering in this process of writing a long work (as opposed to a short paper) is that I have a process that involves roundabout ways of getting to where I need to be, that I need to switch my brain off for awhile, then start it up again. From the outside, this looks like sullenness, aloofness  and idleness but really, it’s just me retreating inside to dig around until I find the part that I need to re-ignite my engine. I need to communicate that better to my partner and I also need to be more assertive in making sure I get what I need. It’s tempting to make myself leave the house to write and think, but where would I go? I write late at night, after Alice has gone to bed and in any case, writing elsewhere often backfires on me as I get too distracted by people-watching. I write better at home, so I need to make a writerly space for myself, both literally and figuratively.

In terms of the actual writing I got done today, there is a theme developing and I wrote quite a few paragraphs that I think represent the true essence of where I want the novel to go. Anne Lamott was right… the first few paragraphs I wrote were pure crap but it led the way to better crap, crap that I’m not too embarrassed to show people. If you’d like to see it, I have it posted at Book Oven, where you can leave your (constructive) two cents for me. You can find my project here, but you may need to sign up for Book Oven in order to see the page but I’ll need to add you as a team member in order for you to see it. Shoot me an e-mail if you’d like access.

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