plugging in.

This night, I have cleaned the kitchen, done two loads of laundry, made a large pot of curry split pea soup, killed time looking at apartment listings, and eaten an embarrassing dinner of crackers, spreadable cheese and pickles. But I have managed to fight through anyway and get down to work. Other things seem more important. Suddenly I suspect I should make a loaf of bread. I feel the need to clean out my closet.

You might be tired of hearing about this procrastinating and putting off and distracting myself. Trust me, you're not as sick of it as I am. But I mention it only to give proof that I'm continuing to slog through it and make progress in the way that I do.

There are many reasons I know I should write. One is this: sometimes I read a book, a page, even a sentence, and while I'm thinking of its beauty and appreciating it and reveling in it, I'm also thinking: I wish I had written that. So I keep on taking things in, out in the creative world, and these things mash around my head and I hope for the best. I hope that my own style will come out of it. You keep taking it in and taking it in and taking it in and something will come out. That's physics, I think. Action and reaction.

I read a chapter of a book today. I sat very still and got tingly feelings in my fingers. Shallow breath and eyes that blurred around the rims from intense focus, from lack of blinking. These things happened. I got the restless-leg-syndrome feeling in my arms and clenched my fists over and over to soothe it. This is what my creative impulse feels like. It is the highest high I know. Seeing something brilliant and wanting to make something else while wishing you had made this awesome thing you're looking at now. It is this single moment when I forget fear, inhibition, failure, rejection, propriety, even life itself. The world is suddenly so big, so full of things for me to see and write and tell and I realize I am staring at this screen with my eyes jacked wide open like it's all unfolding before me now. I'll open them wide enough to take it all in.

the notebook, continued.

Here's the deal:
Two months ago, I said I was going to finish the notebook. I only had seven pages left. More or less the moment I said those words, it became impossible for me to do it. I still wrote, finished two pieces, blogged, wrote in other notebooks. But something in me resisted finishing this notebook. I don't understand it so I can't explain it. I kind of lied a little, mostly to myself, and said it was done. Well, it wasn't.

I know this might seem insignificant - maybe it is insignificant. But it matters to me.

So today, holed up in Starbucks on my lunch break with an Earl Gray tea, I wrote the last seven pages. There, it's done. I want to throw it away something fierce, but I will not.

The notebook ended on this:

And now I'm staring at these last pages gripped with fear, fear of the beautiful words and the ugly words and myself. Just another face in another Starbucks scribbling things that seem so important. Well what is it? I will not throw it away. Keep on keep on. Stand in the long line and creep forward with each moment and word, stare out the window, look back and blink. 

***

the notebook (not the movie).

This week I'm finishing a notebook. I've never finished one before.

It doesn't seem like a big deal, but it is.  Every notebook I've written in has either been abandoned or thrown away.  I've never written from the first page to the last.  But I'm finishing a notebook this week, it's happening, and I'm not throwing it away.  The urge to keep things hidden is still strong. I have often been unable to stand the vulnerability of sharing what I write. It's a habit and a way of thinking that I'm trying very hard to shake.

I've been writing in this particular notebook since last December.  I bought it in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport when I was stranded after Christmas.  It's not a big notebook, so really, it should have been finished months ago.  But I have a hard time keeping my writing all in one place.  I have three different notebooks right now, all in different stages of being written in.  I also write on scraps of paper and hide the scraps in books I'm reading, in my purse, in my pockets.  I write into Gmail drafts.  I write into Word documents.  I write here.

It used to drive me crazy that I couldn't just write in one place, back when I thought the only purpose of writing was producing.  But it's just as much the process as the product, and I've come to terms with the fact that I write randomly.  It's ok -- it's my process.  And there's some magic in discovering a random note on scrap of paper, hidden in a coat pocket months ago, that you can't even remember writing down.

I haven't been terribly productive the last few days.  I tell myself that I'm letting some things rest and letting myself think.  I guess I am, but let's get real: I am just that good at distracting myself from the work I know I want to do.  As a compromise, I made a deal with myself.  Finish the notebook.  There are 7 pages left.  So finish it.

Pick up the pen.

***

This is what today feels like. 

Check out these paintings by Philipp Haager.