Reasons to write
the category for this comes from my favorite author, Milan Kundera. He says that the reason we write is because our children don't listen. Now that's a blithe, pithy sort of comment one can fling carelessly over one's shoulder at cocktail parties (wearing the perfect little black dress, schmoozing with agents and whatnot in chic crowds I don't really belong to) and appear witty, but really, it's sort of true. As in true that.
But then I got an email from a friend, someone I've known online only (he lives in South Africa, which is a bit of a commute). And he's been an important friend over the years. We don't get to talk often enough, and he's a bit of a smartass (but who doesn't like that?) and we both have psych degrees we don't use, both are artists now (although he's been far more successful than I; no, don't argue, you know you have been) and his website is linked below. Anyway, I'm still all teary from the email and that's a bad thing because I overdid it again yesterday (that's an understatement) and I'm in bed with the laptop (which sounds dirty, but really, it's not a sexy picture, with pain pills and pillows everwhere and piles of xmas crap I'm trying to plow through and knitting that's not being done).
But I digress. I quote Mark Twain: I apologize for the length of this letter; I didn't have time for a shorter one.
Anyway, my friend believes in me. And bugs me to write and get it out there. And stop whining. And he's right, he really is, and I do love him for it and I don't think there are words adequate enough to explain how it feels to have someone who totally doesn't HAVE to like what you do, but he does.
And it makes me cry. And I can't reach the kleenex. Wait a sec, I really need the box now...
Ok. Better.
Anyway, my main excuse not to write is because my family takes up too much time and energy, and it's really REALLY hard to find enough time and privacy to write the really intense soul-purging kind of stuff that I think is really what I write best. It's an excuse, a valid one, but still. I took up knitting because it was fun to learn something hard and get good at it (well still working there) and damn I'm impatient, and it beats shopping, and I get a custom fitted garment and can choose everything about it. And yes, it takes time away from the knitting (which is a tragedy, Shakespearean in nature, which only other knitters understand).
Did I think I'd give it up as if it were a compendious thing? (Isn't that a cool word? Yes, I looked it up because I hate that I repeat myself and pithy is already in this at least once). As though publishing once (or twice, but I don't really count the online zine with the bad genre fiction that went out of biz, not that I'm saying it's my fault, but you never know) and the screenplay that *almost* made it to the finals of the first project greenlight? Oh, and the pathetic awards--dating back to high school--for writing?
It felt like MOST of my soul. And yet, I've given it up as if it were a token given up for religious reasons.
So i do Nanowrimo every year. And this is the first year I feel like my work has some bones to it, something I could work on, but I learned long ago that Nano is not for intense soul-bearing literary fiction, I just can't churn out 50K on that. And dammit, it's much more fun to write adult fiction and push the boundaries as much as I can, but I've been nanoing YA fiction, hoping later to work on the language and make it nearly literary-esque as much as I can (and this year, getting trapped by too many 'prithee' and 'nay' and oh em gee, if I had a dime for every "anon" and I can't believe I can't remember the other medieval phrase, the one I probably used more than anything else. The one that resulted in my adding comments like "OH EM GEE CAN'T YOU COME UP WITH ANYTHING ELSE?" to my nano. Fear not, I went 2K over 50K, so those added comments were made up for with regular writing type words)
Do I, as my cheeky friend suggested, "owe the world?" Well no, I can't go that far. But it was nice in a way that the best sex of your life is nice, to hear that someone would think it would be a horrid thing if I never published. Of course he is biased in a) being my friend b) enjoying my racier book and c) not having read my really, really horrid in a being-smothered-by-my-16-yo's-socks way first finished novel, again, genre-mainstreamy. Mainsteamy. McSteamy since really, it was so formulaic it makes me want to puke (think shoes again, really, trust me on that).
Anyway I have new writing friends and a commitment to get off my ass and work on stuff. And Gavin, I promise to work on Essence (Remy book) again because it really is terrible now, but I have enough distance and fictional license now to handle it and fix it up. And try to ignore that someone critiquing it thinks my heroine is way too superficial (well she is, but I can fix her a bit, and sounds like a good opportunity for character development).
See? See how I just wrote a TON of words that didn't add to my novel? I'm good at this. But darling Mr. G, I am not not not getting any kind of "real" writing job because it would be a massive thing to take away from my ability to write. Which would make me sad. (and because then I wouldn't have time to knit)
So thanks for kicking my butt and I will get busy. And there's a screenplay from this year to finish and edit, two novels to finish and rewrite, another short-story-collection-which-really-is-a-novel to work on, and script frenzy again in June...
Have I mentioned how much I hate that it takes so much time to submit fiction in the first place? Sigh. And stamps. Lots of them.
Going now... and will write soon. But right now I have to do Christmas, because if I don't, nobody will. And my kids don't listen, but if Christmas doesn't happen, they'll listen all right, but they won't like what they hear.