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| Summer Reflections Catherine Al-Meten Meyers |
Some of us learn quickly, others learn more slowly. Many of us learn by doing, some by example, and still others by following the instructions to a "t". I use all three methods. Some things are easier for me to do than others. I learned to read, and have been eternally grateful for that gift. I can write, and I can even learn some other languages. I'm better at reading and writing them, than I am at speaking. Why? Because when I speak, I want to sound just right. That's a bad quality for a language learner. It keeps us from practicing and getting better through experience. One of the drawbacks of learning to do some things really well, is we then have the expectation that everything should be as easy for us.
Of course we know this is not true. There is within me though, this expectation that I should be able to figure everything out for myself. In fact you might say I am driven to dig and dig and dig until I find that bone, or gold, or land on the other side of the planet. This proves not to be such a great quality if taken to the extreme. The extreme is not a good place to go if you want to perfect your craft as a writer. Writing may require reworking, editing, revising, and practice....lots of practice. However to make one's living as a writer, the time comes when it is necessary to ask for and get help. Regardless of our job, role, or ambition, none of us were meant to do everything by and for ourselves.
The writer's life is often a solitary one. Being alone and having time to write are necessary for a writer. When we're raising our families, we writers have to work around the needs, schedules, and lives of other people. We have to carve out time and space to do what we do. It can be done. It is an intentional step that once taken, opens the writer to seeing that wanting to write is not the same as writing. Setting aside time each day and finding a place where you can write are both necessary and basic to any writer. In Beverly Cleary's autobiography, My Own Two Feet, Cleary describes being a young wife and mother sitting at the kitchen table in a rental apartment in the hills of Berkeley. With two small children to care for, and a husband who in those days, required a lot of tending to, Cleary determined early on that she had to set time and place aside and just write. At the age of 100 with many years and many books behind her, that formula seems to have worked well for her.
At different stages of life, our needs as writers and creative people differ. During childrearing, family-focused years, our priorities differ from when we shift our interests, attention, and needs. We are living in a time when there are so many possibilities for writers, and much more of an acceptance for creating a different kind of lifestyle. There is less of a stigma against those of us who live alone. I haven't always lived alone, but I certainly enjoy most of the solitary life. In particular, living alone allows me to organize my life, home, and time to support myself as a writer. The drawbacks include doing most everything by myself. I have good friends, but for some strange reason, none want to come over and take out my recycling and trash or do the laundry. Just kidding, kind of.
No, living alone takes a lot of work. Wouldn't change it albeit for something unusual coming into my life to change it. For me the matter is not about how to get someone to do the mundane things, but to find someone who can help me with the tasks and challenges that seem to eat up so much of my time. Technical things for example. Since the mid-80s, I have been shaping my writing and my work around computers and access to all the tools that go with them. As we know, the tools are anything but uncomplicated. The time we spend sorting through technical gaffs, or trying to eliminate bugs or viruses or slow loading times. It's enough to make a women want to cry or take a very long walk or pour herself a stiff drink. Instead of any of the previous options, you see what I have chose to do with my angst. Those of us who work with and on computers know the value of a good techie.
Getting over whatever it is inside me that makes me feel compelled to figure things out, seems at times essential for letting go of what I no longer need to do or fret over. I've met this Trickster on the road before. It's the illusion that I have faced in the past. Its message goes something like this, "If I just work on this a little longer, I'll get it. If I just wait a while longer and try another 100 times the same thing I've already done 50, it will all work out. The litany of 'if onlys' goes on. The problem with that is I have to answer a question for myself. "Do I really want to spend 2 days and countless hours and attempts to do something that should only take about a minute?" The answer is "No, thank you very much."
Years ago a CPA in Carmel took all the file folders of my tax records from my hands, sat me down and gave me a cup of tea, and told me the following, " Your job is to write. My job is to do your taxes. We both don't need to be working on this. I know what I'm doing with tax records, you don't. I have no idea how to write a book or article or poem; you do. Let me take this off your plate."
My accountant at that time, Nancy Callahan, did taxes for all kinds of artists and artsy people. She knew what a struggle it is for many who are used to doing it all themselves. I love people like Nancy Callahan who can help put things in perspective for me.
Whenever I am stewing over something that is overwhelming my time, baffling my mind, and draining my time to write and be creative, I make an effort to rein myself in from overdoing. Sometimes still too slowly for my liking, I recognize that my time is better spent doing what I do best. After years spent learning, practicing, focusing, and developing my own process for organizing and creating, I know myself well enough to know what I need, and what I don't need. I'm better at getting enough rest. Maintaining balance in all areas of my life is a priority. Being a priority is not protection from dealing with the life that pops us at different stages of a writing or other creative project.
Of course this essay comes out of some of the frustration and the challenges that have arisen as I work on the final edits of a book. No surprise there. The first time through anything new is usually more difficult than working with something familiar. Not only am I writing a new genre, I am using a new piece of software to do it. I know, I hear those of you screaming, "Don't you know not to change horses mid stream?" Live and learn. And I believe what I have been learning, among other things, these past few weeks is, there are all kinds of hidden dangers hiding in the bushes. Things will pop up at the least expected times, and what you do is deal with them. Well, you deal with them until you find that what you're doing is like banging your head into a wall. No, at times the best thing to do is step away. Take a break. Think through alternative ways to handle a situation. And at some point coping with an issue, solving a problem, or unraveling a mystery might just involve getting professional help.
Before you start imaging me on the analyst's couch, the kind of help I mean is technical help. Get someone to be your tech person. Get a good editor. Hire a housekeeper on occasion, and always be willing to step away from the situation long enough to see one of the many other ways of getting a task completed, solving a tricky problem, or handling the aspects of the job you don't need to do, to someone who wants to do it, and who knows how to do it. Our job as writers, is to do the writing. Save yourself a lot of stress, grief, time, energy, and can I say time twice"? We have limited amounts of resources, and we want to use our time, energy, inspiration, and ideas to create something useful, meaningful, or entertaining. Expand your circle to include those who would love to do what you haven't a clue how to do. Take it a little more easy. Stop when you're jammed up, and take a long walk. Stop working and fix a nice meal. Set the table, and sit down and dine. Plan and take vacations--long ones and short ones.
Appreciate the beauty and ease that flows when you're headed in the right direction. Begin to notice when you hit brick walls, or meet with overwhelming obstacles, the message is clear. Stop, take some time to refresh and regenerate, and step away from the fire that threatens to burn or destroy the essence of who you really are. When our emotional energy gets reved up, we need to learn to lower our levels of stress and frustration. The easiest way to begin doing this is to recognize where you are addicted to the drama or the need to fix things, or like me, figure something out. Get things in perspective. Someone wrote, it may have been Annie Lamott, "Everything works better when you unplug it and reboot it." Even we work, create, and live more productive lives when we take some time out. Before you get so wrapped up in the 'have to get this done yesterday' mentality, consider how you could change things, one little piece at a time.
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