Too black and white
by Marcella
October! Good. I’m delighted to see that I’ve written something in the last two months. I forget that writing is what has squelched my writing here–the Rose Metal Press chapbook contest opened Nov. 1 and closed Dec. 1, so I was busy with that kind of writing. No extra outside stuff. Other than writing comments on papers, the chapbook has been my life. And I missed the deadline, not paying attention to the time. But I have an almost 40 page chapbook to show for the effort. And it feels good, as it is a substantial piece of work post-MFA, and I can see the flaws and triumphs in it with a practiced eye.
I started making some new edits tonight, in hopes of breaking up the pieces into smaller groups or stand-alones, to send off for non-contest hopes of publication, and I even wrote the corresponding query letters for each cluster of pieces. Since it’s flash, I want to them out in groups of three, but for some of the other things that didn’t go into the chapbook, I have some stragglers. This means more writing, to round out a one or two set into a fuller group. That, too, feels good.
I was talking to a valuable critic and friend tonight, telling him how I cannot get motivated to write unless I have something specific to work toward, and although grad school helped me work through that, I feel that old laziness habit creeping back in. Not laziness, necessarily, but more of an undefined emptiness that prevents me from working if I don’t know who my audience is or what I’m working toward. Feeling the rare bite of motivation today, I spent the afternoon and night working on this stuff, and I realized that the other part of my inability to do anything lately (lately as in the last month, since I’ve completed the chapbook) is that my life is so consumed with papers and writing and lectures that when I get home, although I want to write, I have no desire to think any more. My critic friend told me he just drinks a lot to shut his brain down, but I can’t do that anymore. Oh, I probably could, but that too, like my writerly time and motivation, has kind of been pushed aside for the business of being an adult. If only there was a way to mix them. I mean, I did find a journal tonight that promised to support and carry the work and interests of the girl who is a kindergarten teacher by day and a go-go dancer by night. There are people out there who can juggle both daggers, I suppose, but I don’t think I’m one of them. It’s too black and white for me, although I want both.
I want to get the doctorate and study language and all of that. I know it’s the only way to secure that job that well, secures me and my future. But I also want the time and clarity to write, and if what I’m doing now (with just Comp and tutoring) doesn’t allow the mental energy for that, then what will a full-time, big-time job do for my writing life?
Phooey. Just when I think I’ve gotten over one rut (yes, I am willing and able to teach again! after my despair post school) I find myself spinning into another one. Made of my own mind and opportunity, of course. The one good thing about posting so infrequently here is that I can see just where I was at 3 months ago and gauge it. One of these days I want the points A and B to be very far apart, very dissimilar in terms of uncertainty.
