Maybe I’m just experiencing postpartum blues after the alternative press fair, but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to get my head into writing. Confessing this to my hubby this evening, I came up with a theory: it’s the silence. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The copywriting I do gets sucked into an endless pit of need — which is great from the standpoint of never running out of work, but as a creative person I’m finding this challenging. I have no idea if anyone ever even reads these pieces I’ve worked so hard on or if they make a blind bit of difference — not to the people who need them in order to tick off a to-do box and fill up column\/e-mail\/website inches. They’re great, wonderful people, and I’m happy to be of service to them, but that’s not really who this material is for. I mean the people who are supposed to be the audience for this stuff; I have no connection to them at all. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The novel — well, that’s a huge job, barely begun, and just looking at it makes my brain faint. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Craig gave a presentation at work this week on information overload, and in trying to transmit everything I’ve read and thought about the topic, I’ve been reminded of a few important principles, including the one that says trying to take on too much at once makes our amygdala kick in — the “fight or flight” part of our brain — and then all that helpful neocortical ability to think<\/em> just stops. That’s definitely the case here, so after everything being geared toward getting ready for the book fair, I’m wading back into the novel and trying to ask just teeny questions about it, to go slow. So far so good, ’cause I’m feeling interested in it… except for this background grumble about how long the quiet is going to go on before I have something to show others. And the worry that it’s set in a period and place whose details I’m not familiar with (not having been born there until the next year). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n The work has to sustain the work, I realise this. But audience is an undeniable aspect of art. Right now I feel like I’d have more of an audience if I pursued the things people seem to want me to do — make books and teach them how to make books — or that I should just make boxes and cook and doodle and putter around.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Except for needing money. And the fact that those other things aren’t what I want to do. (Much as I like doing them.) <\/p>\n<\/p>\n I’m tired. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n I’m tired of pulling work out of myself without the energy getting replaced. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n There’s something about attention in this, too. I’m finding it difficult to concentrate. It’s like I’m arriving back home in my mind and there’s no one in the house. Part of that is undoubtedly the Internet. It’s immensely helpful, yet I bitch all the time about the deleterious effect it has on my thinking and my interiority. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n I used to write down everything that happened to me, taking pains to describe<\/em> it all. Now I don’t seem to be bothered with any of that depth. It barely occurs to me to mention the dried salt-spray on my windows and the trees dancing outside against a half-stormy, half-sunsetty sky. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n This is something I’ve been noticing lately, and I don’t know if it’s new or not: My brain has a tendency to skip to the bottom line<\/em>. I read up on a subject, watch a movie, listen to a talk, then I can’t tell you anything about it except the upshot of what I thought about it. Heaven defend me if I get into a debate with someone who actually remembers facts<\/em>. This kind of thinking is nimble is some ways, but in another sense it just makes me, frankly, stupid<\/em>. And it’s very bad for writing, where the whole exercise is about looking intently, noticing, thinking incisively. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Rather than tie this up neatly with some pat decision about what I’m going to do, I’ll just leave all this hanging. This is where I’m at. I’m willing for it to change — oh so willing — but what would that change be? It’s a mystery to me.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maybe I’m just experiencing postpartum blues after the alternative press fair, but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to get my head into writing. Confessing this to my hubby this evening, I came up with a theory: it’s the silence. 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