I haven’t been able to write for a few weeks now, as life sort of took over in the way life does–first, the holidays, then the onslaught of more work than I should have taken on, and then all the meetings that didn’t happen over the holidays happening… and then all that comes of those meetings. When I’m not taking the time to write, I feel the same anxiety that comes with not exercising. I let stress get to me, my jaw clenches a little tighter, I forget to breathe… Without exercise, I’m grumpy, groggy, and woefully out of shape in a matter of days. Without words, I’m also a little grumpy and groggy, and my soul gets a little out of shape. Actually, it gets a lot out of shape. I need words the way I need oxygen going to my muscles and the way I need four cups of water by 4 p.m. for proper hydration and to avoid headaches.
I need words for all the reasons I can’t explain and those I can.
So, I returned to the blog wondering if I should start writing again with a story of the holidays or if I should update my fitness blog that would basically say, “I’ve been lazy for two weeks straight,” or if I should wrap myself up in the words and let them fall where they may. Though there are holiday stories to tell (because I have the sweetest nieces and nephews ever) and though there are fitness stories not to tell, I decided on what for me is the more obvious choice: Let the words fall where they may. And so they fall from a body and mind that has been deprived of them for weeks….
Sometimes, you put the words on paper and there isn’t much of a story to tell. It’s just you and the words, letter by letter spilling on to the page. And when I was a kid, I rarely shared any of my words, always believing they weren’t good enough, sometimes believing they were too sacred to reveal.
Even when you don’t think your words are good enough, the beauty of writing is that you can find a little piece of yourself in between the words and in between the lines, as if your soul is somewhere among the words looking for a place to land, perhaps softly, though for me, I often feel as if my soul is landing hard and with emotions that don’t quite fit between the bumps of an m or into an em space. I spent the better part of my youth believing this, though, that I could find who I was if I wrote enough words and if I wrote long enough or if I wrote just the right ones. I’d go off into corners of the house with my paper and a new pen and spend hours dreaming up words to string together. I’m sure a majority of those words landed in diary-like writings and letters of teen angst, but for me, they were the most important thing in the world. They were my little secrets. They were a part of my soul.
I remember many late nights sitting in my bed in a house on Fleet Parkway here in Culver. I would try to put something on paper while looking out a window on the South side of my bedroom. It faced the neighbor’s house. I remember staring out that window for long minutes at a time while waiting for something to come to me in the way of words. I think my voice came from behind that window or the reflections in it more often than it came from within me. There was something magical about that window, the darkness outside of it, the neighbor house on those occasions when I could see one of the teenage boys who lived there studying at his desk. How many times did I wonder if that teenager over there was dreaming up words like me or simply doing his Calculus homework, how many times did I stare out that window thinking about the basketball game I had just played in and wished I had not fouled that girl or taken that shot, how many times did I stare up into the sky of stars and wonder what was out there, and how many times had I looked out there waiting for words to come to me and give me a voice to put on paper? If I could get back the hours I stared out that window, I’d probably have enough accumulated to remember the whole of my childhood.
If windows could talk.
Whenever Christmas or a birthday would roll around and my parents would ask what I wanted, I would ask for paper and pens. I loved new paper and pens more than anything I can remember. I especially loved a new pad of paper, clean and crisp and ready to be filled with words. And a new pen! A new pen to write on that brand new paper… one of those that could glide along the paper in a smooth and fluid motion… there wasn’t anything more perfect to me. Maybe this is why I don’t own an iPad or Kindle… I savored the newness of those pads of paper and pens, always being careful not to ruin that newness without first dreaming up the perfect words to put down, always digging as deeply into the depths of my soul to find the secrets of me to write. As an army brat, I also loved it when we moved to a new house. I loved getting a new room or what I thought of as a “start over space.” A new house meant a new space to fill, a clean slate. Ironically, I was the messiest child in the family. All that paper I loved was usually stacked into piles and scattered about everywhere. My sisters never volunteered to be my roommate. In fact, I think I eventually got my own room because I could not manage my messes. Nonetheless, I loved a new space the way I loved an empty pad of paper. I think on some level, I just wanted to fill that space with my papers and pens and words and dreams of being a writer. Couple that with my Tomboy lifestyle, and I must have seemed like one weird little kid. On the one hand, I wouldn’t miss a backyard football game with my brother and his friends for anything. On the other, I could sit for hours testing out a new pen and a fresh pad of paper. As for my messiness, I have never been able to marry it with the fact that I loved moving to clean, new spaces. I’ve never been able to marry my messy thoughts with a clean pad of paper. However, I’ve always liked a window in my room.
I’m working on a book with my mom, a history book, for Culver Academies. I love everything about this project. I can’t even speak about how much I love this project without my mouth getting ahead of my brain the way our mouths do when we passionately talk about something. And though I love working on this project, I have dreamed of another story to tell. This one came to me long ago, and eventually, I did put it down on paper. And it’s bound in a book somewhere far from here, in a place I would tell you of only if you promised you’d go steal it for me, so that I would know it’s no longer floating around out there. This is a story I talk to Grant about on occasion because it’s a story that comes back to me over and over again and no matter what window I’m looking through, it’s the story I want to tell. The characters are still very much a part of my psyche. They still speak to me and whisper of themselves, as if they need a place to live. They want to live on a fresh pad of paper. And though I put it to paper long ago, it was far from the story I knew it to be. I knew the day I finished it that I had only begun to write it. That’s the limitation of taking a writing course or of getting your master’s degree in writing. You are forced on to a deadline, and so the story you tell, it comes out of you on a schedule that is far ahead of the time you need to get it right. Your words must arrive and you know you have to give them a place to land in order to obtain that degree and in order to complete the story. But, I’m convinced that sometimes, the words just aren’t ready, no matter how long you look out that window. Sometimes, they need to live with you awhile before you can get them right. I think I’ve talked to Grant about that story only a few times in the past 10 years or so, but every time we talk, I know I need to go back and revisit the voices of those characters. I need to find the words. I need to get that story out.
Any author will tell you that the key to writing is to always be writing. And I believe this is true. In my own work as an editor, I’ve seen this in action, and I know what can go wrong when an author quits writing. When you aren’t writing, you don’t meet the deadline. You never complete the project. But, I also believe that to tell a good story, you must have lived with it and heard the whispers of your characters long enough to know it, to know that you have nothing left to do but let them out–the characters’ voices, the words, the story of your voice. Some people are driven to write a story and there are stories of famous writers who have written books in a week. And then there are those who wait for it. I’ve let this story live in me since my childhood, really. Even as far back as 8 years old, I was concocting my story. And since then, other voices have risen up in me, as if they are demanding I get a new pad of paper and pen and get on with it.
Recently, Grant and I have been talking about writing and book ideas, and as we talked, my brain got ahead of my mouth for once, and I started to dream up a story of small-town life… only, of course, it would be fiction. We talked of the characters we’d include, the story line (a murder mystery perhaps?)… and we talked of other book ideas and the book I wrote long ago (the one that resides somewhere far from here). I thought of what I would write that was real about this town and what I would know was fiction. There is a thin line between the two.
By the end of our conversation, I realized that the important thing is to recognize that the wait is over and it’s time to write. So, this becomes WIG (Wildly Important Goal) #2. Mom and I are currently writing a history book that we plan to finish in the coming few months… and when we are done with that project, WIG #2 is going to begin. And it is this: Write my story, whichever one is ready.
Perhaps, you will take this journey with me, give me feedback when I post a chapter or two, tell me your thoughts about my story line, comment on character names… Perhaps you’ll follow WIG #2 and hold me accountable to it. Perhaps you’ll be the window of my room.
I am going to buy a fresh pad of paper and a new pen.
Love,
Frieday girl
