BODY AND MIND

One of the toughest things about being an artist is knowing what you have to do and want to do and not being able to do it. Tonight I am exhausted. My two year old hasn't slept a full night in about a month now. For some reason he's wide eyed and bushy tailed at three o'clock in the morning. He has never had a sleeping issue but lately he's just raring to go at 3:00 a.m. Often, I am compelled to bring him into bed with me just so that he doesn't wake my daughter down the hall and I'm left with two bushy tails at 3:00 a.m. So needless to say, I'm on my way to bed --- cannot write tonight. Nothing there. Nothing of quality anyway. Funny to me how interconnected the brain and body are. I think of people who put on a pot of coffee and stay up to write until all kinds of weird times in the morning. Now, I've done the coffee thing but unless I'm really feeling it, I can't go past 1:00, 1:30 the latest. And tonight is definately not one of those nights.


I find myself again, lamenting that I have not reached that stage of supporting myself from my art. Like most writers at this stage, I long for the day that I can write and teach writing (workshops) full time. I just imagine how pleasurable it must be to have one's day completely to one's self without having the tensions of this 9-5 grind. Now let me say from the outset that I consider myself very fortunate. I work from home so I don't have the pain of having to fight traffic and be in front of the watercooler by 8:59. I don't have the lurking boss problem or the chatty-cathy co-worker or the cubicle syndrome. THANK GOD! But I do have to give 8 hours of my day to an establishment and I have a problem with that. The other night my Y-factor (stole that from someone, isn't it neat?) and I were watching 60 minutes and we learned that in Kuwait the citizens are given subsidized housing, don't pay taxes, do not do manual labor (foreigners are imported to do that) and also --- get this! --- have a three hour workday! I was floored. They also have free healthcare. I'm not gonna touch that right now, that's the topic of another post. Three hour workday....can you believe it? I wouldn't know how to act! And then I think of we Americans who work on average a nine hour day with 1/2 - 1 hour lunch for five days per week, fifty two weeks out of the year. We Americans who give our women six weeks of maternity leave and then wonder why our children perform so poorly in schools and in life. The reality is that I am tired because I have the awesome task of working, child-rearing and writing all at once. I cannot give up on either right now. Childrearing I'm cool with. My kids are great (when they're sleeping) and I wouldn't trade being a mother for anything in the world. But this work thing ..... it sucks. I long for the ability to work at my passion full time and get off this merry go round. The one thing I plan to tell my children is to find and pursue their passions. I tell young people that I know now, "Look, you're gonna have to work for the rest of your life and if you have to drag your ass somewhere for the next fifty years, you better find something that you really, really enjoy or else you're going to have a really crappy existence." An associate of mine with two young daughters told me she wants her daughters to have careers. I told her I want my kids to be happy. I want them, above and beyond any amount of income or social status, to be happy. She told me "You can't pay bills with happiness." I told her to tell that to Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd, Martha Stewart, P-Diddy, Halle Berry ................ you get my drift don't you ? And I mention these people b/c none of them had silver spoons.

Anyhow, my brother called tonight and asked how the book is coming along. I told him about my goal of 7/1 and hearing myself say it and feeling how my body feels -- worn down, tired -- I became even more disgusted knowing that 7/1 is only three weeks away and if I don't get cracking I'm not even going to reach the 8/1 that I adjusted to. Oh the mind and the body. If there were a way to put the body to bed and keep the mind going to do the work it needs to do .....

It's eleven, I better get off of here. Maybe I'll get up at five and try. Maybe.

Gheez, another month has past and where I thought I'd commit to journaling once a week or so, real life pervades and I just don't get here as often as I'd like.
Well, I'm up to chapter forty in my novel, not that much more to go but I had my target finish date set at 7/1/02. Not quite sure that I'll make 7/1 but I honestly think I might be able to knock it down by 8/1. I really don't even want to give myself another month -- this draft has been three years in the making. I shouldn't complain because in three years I bought a house, had a baby, changed jobs and got my oldest child, a preschooler through to first grade. So I really should be awfully damn proud of myself. But you know how we humans are: we walk into ye olde bookstore, see a novelist out there who's pumping out a novel a year and we think..."what the hell is taking me so long?" I'm at the place in life though where I'm learning to live and be present in each moment. My daughter graduated from kindergarten on Friday and looking at her standing on that stage, singing her heart out, happy as can be....in that one moment, nothing else mattered. I remembered that six years ago she'd been born, was nestled at my breast and now here she is ready for first grade. I thought about how quickly one minute merges with the next until days, weeks, months and years pass. I'm determined not to let this novel or writing for that matter, pervade my every waking moment. In fact, I was watching BET Tonight a few weeks ago when Susan L. Taylor made that same point. She thought back on her life and realized (with much dismay) that she'd missed out on so much of the joy of her daughter's life. Not that she wasn't there physically, I believe she meant that she missed out on those precious moments that come and go so quickly. Long derailment just to say that these days I'm trying to cultivate the art of what I call "Moment to Moment Living" and though I'm setting goals for myself, I'm not going to beat myself up over my slower progress.

Still waiting to hear from these three journals who have two short stories of mine. One has had my story since January. Very hesitantly I called the editor last month who apologized and said I should know something by June. Damn, I'm not submitting to them again. Six months is too long, in my opinion, for anyone to tie up my work. The other journal, which promises response in 8-10 weeks has now had my story for 12. I'm going to hold out for two more weeks but I may need to give them a shout too. The third place just received my story a few weeks ago so I've got a while to wait yet.

I joined this writer's guild and went to the first meeting this past weekend. It was cool to be in the company of other women but I tell you, there was that one consistent, annoying theme that I find in most groups -- that complaining that "I can't find the time to write." I think that's the one thing that really irks me. I mean, I just don't want to hear it. If I can work full time, manage a two year old and a six year old, a husband, bills, and an acre property out back ..... and still get a novel three quarters of the way finished then I don't want to hear anybody else complain about their not having time. Many of the members were older women - late forties, fifties .... and I'm like "here we go again." I hear the same thing over and over. And then the other thing was, after the intros and a short break, fourteen people read from their work. Now, the intros were fine but when it got around to the reading I thought "What am I doing here?" Maybe it's me, but I just don't find any value in hearing people read excerpts of a work in progress. Like, middle of the novel stuff. Why? Because I need to know a story, know its theme and purpose, before I can critique it. How do I know if that piece of dialogue that you just read for five minutes works in relation to the whole story if I don't even know what the story is about or where in the story we are? How do I know if that long piece of exposition is any damn good if I don't know where in the story we are? After all, you might get away with some long winded exposition in the beginning but if that piece is midde or end then you're in trouble. See what I mean? And then the other thing is: what is critique? What is the value of critique in a group of --- excuse me --- people who can't ever find the time to write ? I know I may come off harsh here but really ...............

So.... .... I go off in my corner, maintain my membership I suppose and keep writing. The group thing just isn't for me.
peace.

shared with you at 11:36 PM by angel