For the Love (of Writing)
What Love Is
Valentine’s Day. Hallmark Cards. Red roses. Special-menu dinners. Diamond necklaces. Or other such nonsenses. A day to idolize, romanticize and celebrate the notion (not the reality) of love is something I’ve always found ridiculous. Love isn’t found – and we all know this – in a bunch of roses, or a jewelry case. Those are just symbols. And love isn’t a symbol. Is it?
“Love is a choice!” A friend of mine said this. It’s work, she said, commitment. Unfortunately, she was really talking about divorce and why she thinks people divorce too soon – they give up, they don’t understand the highs and lows of life. She was a freelance writer at the time, working on her first novel, and everything she said could be applied to writing. Hers. Mine. Yours. If we’re here, it’s because we love writing. And we’re learning how to negotiate the daily life of writing. It’s work; it’s commitment; it’s a choice. Isn’t it?
To be perfectly honest, sometimes –more than I’d like – I love the concept of writing more than I love writing. I love it when it’s over, when I reread and discover the time spent biting my lip, fingers sitting useless on the keyboard, hair chewed into split ends, actually all coalesced into something after all. And something I was happy to read, no less. But then there’s all the rest of it. The chewing on my lips. The fingers poised, impatiently. The hair spilling out of its bun and into my mouth. After three days— not full days, just three spates of time across three days—I decide I hate this essay. I can’t stand it. I’m tempted to delete it, close the computer. Of course, then I’d have to reboot the computer and send out an apology to the editors: “Thanks for thinking of me. Turns out I hate my computer. Goodbye.”
This is where symbols come in again, in case you were wondering.
I don’t actually hate my computer; I define myself by it. You know where this is going, so I’ll let you fill it in. Let’s just say I’m damn possessive of my notebook. I bet you are too, whether your notebook is paper, or metal-and-plastic. Mine is actually two, one of each. My husband is the computer guru, and suffers through the suspicious, worried looks when he wants to make a change to the machine. He suffers through the fury, which is really desperation, when the machine fails and I’m in knots because I. Can’t. Write. Even if I only had time to check email for the rest of the week. Even if the only thing I’m writing is an essay I can’t stand. But that describes every essay I write.
The Rituals of Love
Here I am again at Starbucks. I’m not advocating for it. I’m not advocating against it. Starbucks is simply the best place for me to write in this quadrant of my city. Well, it’s here or McDonald’s, and Starbucks installed more computer outlets.
One of the first things I teach my reading students is about finding a place to work. It seems silly to teach about working conditions in a reading class, but while I don’t really spend much time on it, a place to work is an incredibly important thing. I don’t spend much class time on it because there are no generalities.
This really does relate to rituals. I promise.
Everybody needs a place – not only a place to put things, but space for the placement of things, and lighting, and noise, and seating, and– it really is so personal, so individualized that right does not exist and wrong does not exist, only what works and what does not.
Place is a ritual. If you have not thought about it before, consider it. Where do you work? What’s the first thing you do when you arrive at that work place? And the second thing? Where do you cook? What’s the first thing you do when you arrive at that cook place? It’s possible you had specific answers to the first one (work place) but drew a blank, or had a jumble of answers, at the second one (cook place). I’d bet it’s because you have rituals for work but not for cooking. (Keeping in mind that there are many, many people out there who actually like cooking or do in fact have a ritual for it.)
For me, I have two “work places”. I teach – my work place is the assigned classroom. The first thing I do is walk to the front of the room and pull out the folders I need for that day. My second place is where I write.
I know of a writer who worked perched on a threadbare office chair at a corner desk just big enough for his typewriter and coffee mug. It seems the key was the chair. It had to be that chair. The contours and movements of it were so familiar that any other chair was a distraction. Of course he would get used to another chair if he really had to. But that’s not the point. The point is, that chair was his ritual. His trigger for moving from person in the house to person in the mind.
For me, it’s something hot, even if it’s 115 dry, lung-sucking degrees outside and the air conditioner is barely noticeable. And, it’s a coffee shop, or even a diner. Someplace I can linger with my something hot, where I am familiar enough with the rise and fall of business that it’s just background noise. Someplace I stare blankly absolutely anywhere without the half-glimpse of something flipping me into mom-mode: “oh, better wash that”; “oops, time to put dinner together.”
Symbols are a bit general. They mean different things from culture to culture, but within cultures, the meaning stays more or less the same. Rituals are completely different, totally personal. But whatever it is, for writers it’s like the hidden path from conscious mind to unconscious. This must be where the idea of a writer settling and resettling his or her coffee mug comes from, as if it’s an actual magic path. It’s just a ritual, a physical reminder that “it’s time” to proceed.
And it is.
The Process of Love
Now I’m at my kitchen table – a very useful piece of furniture when I can find it. It’s big enough for me to spread my scratchings out – those pages I just tore from my paper notebook to enter into my mechanical one. I am, typically, taking longer to write than I planned on. I planned on a complete draft on Monday and revisions on Tuesday. Instead I’m still going. I’m nearly done, and I must be. My son will be home soon and I’m in charge of him all day tomorrow – no chance to write there. No chance to write until next Monday…and someone will be reading this by then. But this is how I work. What starts off as a neat, tidy conversation (monologue) in my head becomes something more rambly, and often more interesting, on paper. That’s why I draft on paper. Then it somehow organizes itself as I type, glancing only infrequently at what I handwrote. If I had time for one more review, I’d edit it down – a few phrases deleted, others reordered. I’d smooth out some things. But my son is coming soon and I need something other than cookies for dinner.
Some writing teacher somewhere will tell you the process is idea-draft-revise-draft-revise. But all of that and everything I just wrote, is my process. Down to the last-minute cookies. Unfortunately. I do change the process where I need to (like eliminating the cookies). I adapt: I write faster or slower according to deadlines. I draft on my computer and try very hard not to continually edit my first five sentences. I chew on the top lip instead of the bottom. I do it all knowing that symbol, ritual, and process all blend together into one important, systematic chaos in my mind. I do it all because I love writing. Even when I hate it.
But that’s me. What about you?
Hi Jessica
I love the idea of ritual and of incorporating it into my daily routine. Writing for me is part of a ritual and yes I have a favourite place to sit, I usually light a candle and make a pot of ‘Tea of Life’ which is a wonderful blend of white teas. I sometimes have a few squares of dark cholcolate too. At the moment I am writing in a beautiful leather bound journal which is the colour of ochre. Once I’ve poured my soul onto the page in my journal I then move onto more serious work. At the moment I am writing a book about ‘healing and creativity’. I also run a writing programme called ‘Writing From the Heart’ so I am constantly jotting down ideas and planning lessons.
Writing came to me when I was very ill some years ago and it became a daily ritual which has transformed my life and my path.
I am glad that you have found your true vocation.
All good wishes
Raine
Raine,
Delighted to hear from you!
Interesting coincidence…I’m trying to return to the habit of writing so I can finish a story of Raine.
As for vocation…actually, I’ve found two. Unless you count motherhood. (Which I don’t, it’s more like a lifestyle choice…)
Isn’t it interesting how writing can be so much, and also so little — it just depends on the person, (and maybe on the ritual?)
Hi again Jessica
I am intrigued about your story of Raine, without giving too much away can you tell me just a little bit about it.
I was christened Lorraine but had many other names as a child: Lollypop, Lolly then Loll, my granny called me Raine which has sort of stuck, a friend calls me Lorrie and in Italian I am called Lorena.
Raine, late reply here — somehow your response slipped by my last check in. I’m afraid I can’t tell much about the story. Not due to any secrecy on my part, it’s simply the project I’m trying to weasel my way back into and I could not have described it much when I was actively writing it.
I love the plays on your name! That is one thing from the story — I have a character who loves the name Raine because it can’t be shortened (not true, of course. But I did not realize that Raine it’s self might be a shortened form.)
This is interesting, my niece. Glad I ran across it. I’ll have to catch up on more of your writing.