On protection
I am working on something at which I've never been particularly skilled: protecting my days. Three days a week belong a little bit to cooking, a little (okay, tiny, if I'm being honest) bit to running, a little bit to reading, but mostly to writing.
It's been so long since I've actually felt like a writer.
But on Monday it was cool enough out that at noon I could dig around in my still-unpacked boxes for some workout gear and set out. I like to run in new neighborhoods, and I like even more when they prove worthy of a good run. This one isn't, so much--there is too much sunshine and no hills and I'm bordered by two of the city's biggest streets; grassy parks turn out to be office complexes and signs promising real parks turn out to offer space no bigger than a track--but the neighborhood is charming, both crafts-style two stories that probably cost more than I can imagine and many, many small duplexes and multi-units shoved onto a single lot. I miss Saratoga, and I miss San Mateo, and even San Diego, too. Still, though, Tuesday that telltale ache crept into my hamstrings and I was glad I'd gone out; today I did, too.
As for the writing, it's becoming, slowly, again a part of my days. The running helps with that, because when I run I find myself narrating every heroic step, and by the time I've gone home and showered and cooled off it's as though I've already started a draft. (But then, where it's difficult is that there are a million things that help with writing: it helps if my home is clean and the dirty dishes aren't gossiping downstairs; it helps if I've answered all my emails; it helps if I read trashy celebrity blogs and get my imagination running, etc etc etc. The point of protection is that, really, only my health and my writing matter, and I need to attend to them.)
I want to have finished my novel by March. That's six months; it should be doable.
But then I keep reading these brilliant, brilliant authors, lately Curtis Sittenfeld (who knew), Christopher Isherwood and Grace Paley (oh God, Grace Paley, whose lines have been haunting me for days now) and then I see so, so many ways in my writing in which I'm not them. And then I want to start over and throw everything away and hope that everyone's forgotten every sentence they've ever written so I can appropriate all their words and try to pass them off as mine.
It's been so long since I've actually felt like a writer.
But on Monday it was cool enough out that at noon I could dig around in my still-unpacked boxes for some workout gear and set out. I like to run in new neighborhoods, and I like even more when they prove worthy of a good run. This one isn't, so much--there is too much sunshine and no hills and I'm bordered by two of the city's biggest streets; grassy parks turn out to be office complexes and signs promising real parks turn out to offer space no bigger than a track--but the neighborhood is charming, both crafts-style two stories that probably cost more than I can imagine and many, many small duplexes and multi-units shoved onto a single lot. I miss Saratoga, and I miss San Mateo, and even San Diego, too. Still, though, Tuesday that telltale ache crept into my hamstrings and I was glad I'd gone out; today I did, too.
As for the writing, it's becoming, slowly, again a part of my days. The running helps with that, because when I run I find myself narrating every heroic step, and by the time I've gone home and showered and cooled off it's as though I've already started a draft. (But then, where it's difficult is that there are a million things that help with writing: it helps if my home is clean and the dirty dishes aren't gossiping downstairs; it helps if I've answered all my emails; it helps if I read trashy celebrity blogs and get my imagination running, etc etc etc. The point of protection is that, really, only my health and my writing matter, and I need to attend to them.)
I want to have finished my novel by March. That's six months; it should be doable.
But then I keep reading these brilliant, brilliant authors, lately Curtis Sittenfeld (who knew), Christopher Isherwood and Grace Paley (oh God, Grace Paley, whose lines have been haunting me for days now) and then I see so, so many ways in my writing in which I'm not them. And then I want to start over and throw everything away and hope that everyone's forgotten every sentence they've ever written so I can appropriate all their words and try to pass them off as mine.
posted by Kelly at
10:41 PM
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