In November, I wrote 30 poems in 30 days for Tupelo Press. I got up at 6:24 a.m. every day, even the weekends, and sat my booty in a chair and thought:
“POEM POEM… POEMTRY ….ok come on yuh fancy words lesssgooooo type-y type type”
Then after a little bit. I’d write something that went word after word and had some kind of tied together theme-ish. Then I would edit it.
I was bolstered by a list of “topics” I requested from some peeps on FB. It all went pretty ok and I have to say that there’s something to be said for doing the same damn thing everyday. Pretty soon guess what? One finds oneself — again — doing the same damn thing another day. And another. Until a bunch o’ days have gone by and you’ve repeated yourself over and over again a bunch of days in row, but different every day.
But, then. December 1st hit, I woke up at 6:24 a.m. and I was like:
AIN’T NO WAY I AM GOING TO WRITE A STINKING POEM TODAY. Or ever again.
lol, I thought to myself.
But wait. No.
Later that week, I was lying around staring and doing nothing (when I was probably supposed to be doing something) and THE SAME THOUGHT returned.
I am never writing again. I AM DONE. BLANKNESS FOREVER.
With curiosity, I noted a deep void of desire or feeling even where “writing” once was inside me.
I had also undertaken NANOWRIMO during the first 13 days of November, and it went really well for the same reason as above. I simply put aside any kind of thought about “trying” and sat my butt down and clampity-clamped-clamped on the keys in 15 minute sprints while being egged on by pierced and fanciful Gen Zers on Discord. Like so many honey badgers before them, they did not care.
I didn’t make it through Nanowrimo because I stopped logging into Discord for absolutely no effing reason I can think of other than (maybe?) I was discombobulated by the fact that I’d applied for a job at the local Home Depot, got hired, but they never ever ever ever ever called me back to come in and work.
And then I sprained my ankle moving a .2 lb leaf bag on a totally flat surface. Ennui set in. And, probably, that familiar start-stall pattern I am so freaking aware hunted me down and found me again. I tried to hide … or be different.
When I married Colin (20 years ago this May), I am pretty sure he had some idea in his mind that I’d be supporting us in our retirement with all the money I’d be making from my many published novels, films, series etc.
The absolute worst thing to be asked as a writer is: “Have you been published?” just FYI. Smile through gritted teeth… man, I should really have an elevator speech for my innate human failure by now. Goodbye cruel world as I throw myself off a curb.
Better to ask “Do you enjoy writing?” and enjoy with mirth and merriment the wildly twisted response you are likely to get. (bee tee double-u … they will TELL YOU if they’ve been published FFS.)
Sigh. My mom spent her whole working life at the job she trained to do in college: math teacher. Pretty sure she died disappointed in me, having never read anything I’d ever written but some newspaper articles.
My dad served in the military for 6 years and then went on to work many different “blue collar” kinds of jobs where he retired with a pension. He also receives veteran benefits. He “doesn’t read” except the ads that come in the mail. It’s not his bag, baby.
Being a freelance person and an “artist,” work is so different than what my mom wanted for me in life. Everyday, I get up and choose uncertainty. Thankfully when I sprained my ankle, I was still able to work. I didn’t crack my head open on curb.
Weeks on, it’s still December, and I still don’t feel like writing much. Auto-reminders pop up on computer nudge me to journal, post on Substack, join onto my writing group. I’m filling time practicing French on Duolingo.
Twenty-five years ago I met a woman in Larry’s Communiversity clay class. She was a psychic who was occasionally hired by the KC Police Department to help them on big murder cases.
I moaned to her that I was experiencing writer’s block.
“Oh honey,” she said as she dabbed at her bowl with a tiny brush, “you aren’t blocked.
“You’re just absorbing.”
I did manage to write a bit this month because of the awesome writing group I’m in, WWKC. Here’s a poem below from a couple of Tuesdays ago. The prompt was to respond to the poem “Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann. Feel free to listen to the poem (it’s amazing) or scroll on by.
Thus, Vexatious You have a right to be here, he said. So I considered how I often felt displaced, not by the trees or the stars, but by moods that come upon me, which overcome me. I am myself, and this seems in conflict with all these other, sweeter messages. If I be myself, I might be loud and aggressive and thus, vexatious to others. Even with all the poet's temperate acceptance of a wild world as it is -- the sham, the drudgery, the boring people -- the one thing seems required: outcast the loud ones. So that’s the fear, borne of fatigue and loneliness. Tired of being wary of the self -- what monsters may pop out of me. So, I stay, thus hidden, knitting the loneliness. What hope is there for being oneself when one walks in the arid disenchantment of worry? One may name a person one's own: she's the lushest field, they sigh, and how she believes you, until -- just once -- they turn their ankle on your angry mood. Why would God invent such a weak thing? One should be cheerful! Come on! Just let it all go, but the world is full of trickery, lurking worries shaped of shadows, disenchantments to sour the most magical commune. I return again and again with my broom and mop to try, to unbury the virtue but perhaps this is just the universe, unfolding.
This post very much resonates with me and your poem is superb.
This kind of writing practice, never mind publishing outcomes, really feeds the work, thanks for reminding me.