EXCAVATION AND CREATING SPACES

Virginia Woolf says a woman needs a room of her own if she is to write. I say a woman needs money---the kind that is reliable and undeniably her own---and as little debt as she can manage without living like a pauper. I understand why J. California Cooper paid off all her bills, rented out her house and built an apartment over her own garage until her first novel was finished and sold. I also say that a woman needs to write whether there's a room to have or none at all.

I love my husband with a love I didn't think I could ever again eke out for a human being of male persuasion. Men are to me, at most times, odd creatures. Spouse is really my ACE, my number one cheerleader, bandleader and coach; the one who really goes to bat for me and keeps me writing when I honestly start considering careers in marine biology, archaeology, basket weaving -- anything besides writing. But for all of his support, the one thing he can't seem to muster is silence. That goes double for our children.

I realize they don't really understand my need for silence. And let's make a much needed distinction here: wanting silence and needing it are two different things. The former is what you just call "down time," "chill time," "time out," and "time to just veg." The latter, the "needing," is what occurs when you venture into anything remotely close to creativity. And let's take it a step further. Creativity, to my mind, means to create, to fashion "something" from "nothing." An idea weaved into a story; a fabric made into a dress; a string of beats made into a song; a mound of clay pressed into a sculpture. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older and crankier or if it's because I'm a creative person or if it's because there really is too much noise these days but I find that I crave---absolutely NEED---periods of silence. I'm a junkie for silence. I'll be the first to volunteer to "run to the store," just so I can drive along in silence. It seems that everywhere you go there's either music playing (not even MUZAC but the Hot 97 kind of music) or a t.v. tuned to CNN. Do people really want this much entertainment? (Let's face it, CNN is NOT the source for true investigative journalism. If you want to see me throw up and fall into a fit of convulsions, just tell me that "It's true! I saw it on CNN the other night.") Not to mention the noise from conversations on cell phones in the middle of the grocery store or the bank about results of pregnancy tests, recent vasectomies, rent that is due or overdue, lovers that left town, booties that were groped at the club, and the real kickers, the "Oh, did I tell you what Emily did? Oh she's soooo amazing and soooo awesome and sooooo brilliant because she, like, woke up today and like, opened her eyes and said Ga-ga! Can you believe it??? I think we better sign her up for gifted and talented advanced placement preschool or like, something."


Aaargh!


But the point is....the noise. Noise in my home and noise just about everywhere which led Spouse to say to me, "Honey, why don't you go out and write today. Take your new iBook and just get a change of scenery."


Good idea.


As much as I hate to admit it, I tried the Starbucks in Barnes and Noble thing at his recommendation. Since I live in the boring 'burbs and all the trendy little cafes are downtown, half an hour away, I figured I'd give it a try. Bad idea. True to form with Starbucks and B&N, the place was filled with chattering twosomes and others hunched over laptops trying to look brilliant or busy or both. One thing I did notice was that the bulk of the hunched ones (the laptop folks) were typing from something already written--basic word processing stuff, I'm guessing--nothing that looked like down-in-the-muck-blank-stare-at-the-ceiling kind of creative work. I could be wrong. Not only was I limited in space but I found myself horribly distracted by the coming and the going of customers, the noise of the espresso/cappucino machines, the overhead music, the talking. Quickly, ever so quickly, I loaded up my stuff and hauled tail.

There are a million places a writer can go to write but only a few--a hand full at best--where one can go to listen. I headed off to my favorite listening post: the cemetary.

I know what you're thinking but there's a beautiful cemetary near my home (if cemetaries can be thought of as beautiful). The landscape is an endless green carpet, with hills and dips and at its center is a pretty sizeable lake filled with beautiful white geese that have no apprehension whatsoever toward humans. Their chattering is like music to me; it's as harmonious as windchimes and completely in sync with my creative mind. Watching them plod along the lake's edge, their low squat kind of stance, their waddle, I think of women when they are full with babies, ready to give birth. Similarly I think of myself, pregnant with this novel, so ready to give birth. It seems the sun is always glistening off that little lake; the geese always moving about in one direction or another, aware of the danger in being too sedentary (a lesson we humans could take). In spring, like now, the place is filled with flowers and hovering overhead are all the wonderful peripheral sounds of nature.

Sometimes we writers have to step out of rooms, search for new places altogether, especially when we're trying to excavate our stories. Steven King writes in his memoir, "I believe stories are found things, like fossils in the ground.... Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground as intact as possible."

We need, every now and then, to examine those tools. Whether it be a mechanical device within the craft of storytelling, such as grammar, vocabulary, dialogue, flashback, metaphor, simile, or the tools of time management, creating space ... whatever it is, we need to do what we need to do to get the job done.

I had quite a productive day today with Evelyn. Slowly but surely I'm lifting her up and out, as carefully as I can.

Write!

ANGEL