On the Process

on the process, week of Jan 15-21

/ Elizabeth / Leave a comment

I have not written about Annabelle, but I’ve thought about her. she is stuck, like a bug on pins or flattened between panes of glass. but I see her moving, despite the pressure of pins and glass, and she’s coming back to me. I don’t usually like to use first person in a fictional story, and that’s what’s making me shy to start again, so I will have to allow it and become comfortable with it, because I think that’s what the story calls for. 

I surprised myself by starting a new piece on Sunday — it’s about skin — and I drafted a couple of poems last weekend. it seems disingenuous to report that all these ideas are coming at me so effortlessly and that I’ve just got to open my laptop or grab a pen to catch them all on paper. but it felt a little bit like that with what I started today. maybe having a prompt helps. that’s what I had for the piece on skin. also, I decided to stay away from social media all day. unsurprisingly, it’s the calmest and most content I’ve been in days and days.

the lack of mental static is delicious. I must plan to repeat it, a day away from the online noise.

so we are approaching each other little by little, Annabelle and I. maybe I will force a final push this coming week, one with a prompt and a day without social media. why not? these stories won’t write them selves. 

on the process, week of Jan 8-14

/ Elizabeth / Leave a comment

back to work, and there is less time to be, or it feels that way. 

at work:  so much creation – of space and tasks and ideas and solutions to problems I never even anticipated arising. 

at work:  so many people, so much energy spent externally, the volume turned up much higher. and that is fine. I do not like to be only alone, only quiet. but it makes hearing the quieter voices, the softer nudges, the gentler pulls, harder to notice and follow. 

everyday presents the choice to choose habit or intention. habit is temptingly easy, intention much harder. 

I am intending to choose intention, even in small things:  quiet until after breakfast; noticing the light changing during the day, how it falls across the floor, then the wall, then away; sweeping the floor and chopping vegetables as meditation and not chores; looking for new beauty in a face I already know; this weekly reflection. 

and I must confess:  this weekly reflection was intended to be about a longer work, a book that started forming four years ago, but it has wandered so far away I’ve had to do dishes in silence and shovel snow in the cold to find a way to invite it back. 

and I must confess again:  I am through the foothills and at the base of the mountain, I think. I know where it will go, the book — if things go well — but I have to start over, nearly. what I thought would be a story told in limited third is asking to be told in first person. so. I have to sift through those pages, bravely, and let them go and move them into something new. again. re-creation. 

so. I intend to make time to sit at a window or at my desk and watch the light change, and also reread pages and smile and say hello and goodbye and hello, to start again. 

on the process, Jan 1-7

/ Elizabeth / 1 Comment

a few things I’ve learned this break: 

no one’s going to ask me to write, or be creative, or try new things

but if something good happens — like winning a contest — people will say they always knew it,

that I had it in me, that they knew I’d do it, that I’d win, etc. etc.

that isn’t to say:  I don’t believe those people. 

that isn’t to say:  those people and their kind attentions aren’t true. 

it is to say the praise is dormant, it needs a reason to surface, 

it will not arrive for no reason, and also

it is inconsequential past the moment of receiving, because the crest falls to trough, 

and there I am again, quiet and sunken and waiting to make more, try again. or not. 

because — remember — no one asks me to write, to create, to try new things

that is up to me, just me.

no one will mourn my empty pages, my echoing time, hours spent lying around, dormant like the praise. 

just me. I will mourn the time, the misses, the quiet echoing quiet, the unwritten, the untried. 

I will know that I could have done, and I didn’t. or that I wouldn’t. 

another thing:  

it doesn’t have to be good, not the first time, not the last time, it just has to be, 

let it go, wings to the wind, so that it can float and go, 

because who knows if it’ll amount to something, it might not,

but it is and it was, and it’s okay if it’s a sketch of an idea, it’s better than no, nothing, none, not.

also: 

sunlight. I need it. 

also: 

a schedule. I need it. 

also: 

movement. I need it. 

also: 

outside everyday, any weather, all weather. I need it. 

also:  I do not want to resent or envy another person for their creativity. it is energy better spent on creation. and it is a signpost, an arrow down the road in the direction I’d like to go. so, rather than a flash of anger, a pit in the gut, it can be a breadcrumb, illuminating the way, a place for my feet, a spot to search. 

and finally:  play. it is not so serious. make the pancake and throw it out. or eat it. just mix the batter and heat the pan. see what happens.