What Would a Writer Do?
September 2, 2011
officially in a mood.
you know you’re over some edge when you cry at a chipotle commercial. yes, i did. it’s the one about sustainable food production, about “going back to the start,” the cold play song, “the scientist,” sung by willie nelson. watch it here. a commercial.
heavy hearted because a friend’s young child was diagnosed yesterday with a life changing disease. not a close friend, but a horrible condition. takes me to questions of injustice, uncertainty, impermanence, fate, powerlessness. anything can happen to anyone.
defeated because i already need shoring up, here in week TWO, in the challenge to help peter organize and stay on top of school, already hitting the wall of frustration and hurt that is his ceaseless rolling eyes, rejection of support lovingly offered, relentless negotiating for new rules, when the agreed upon rules, just two weeks old, are fine. his tendency to set his bar ever lower because it’s easier. my job: to stay the course, be the mom.
pissed because obama’s letting this pipeline go through, backing off of some clean air regulations, presumably all in the interest of deal making? which won’t happen because the other guys will never play fair. so all the caving’s for naught. and he took a high road and changed the date of his jobs speech after reps whined it’d interfere with one of dozens of republican debates, but now tea party dudes aren’t planning to show up anyway, which is so disrespectful it makes me want to scratch somebody’s eyes out. i hate bullies and people who cheat.
aching because one person i know was terribly, unconscionably mean to another. can’t effing BELIEVE it, and can’t name names, because somebody might read about it and challenge me, or defend themselves, and i don’t need it. they were out of line. end of story. man up.
frustrated because my intents have been misconstrued. my efforts not appreciated.
for some unreasonable reason, feel overwhelmed. could cheerlead myself out of this, know my many ways, but i’m not. fact is, i’m not overwhelmed at all, i’m just allowing myself to sink, to remain stubbornly and lugubriously in overwhelm. that’s stupid, but what it is.
does this add up to something to write about? it could, i imagine. it’s a garden variety sad and pissy mood, but it ought to touch a nerve, parlay itself into a creative spark somewhere. first, i wanted to let go to see if anything real could pour forth (you can tell it did because there’s not a capital letter in sight… see? an emotional dump.). but seems a writer then takes that and organizes it into something other than a list. maybe captures the sentiment in the form of a poem or a short story, or a character description.
what would a writer do?
picking an expansive picture from my archive.. something to suggest taking a bigger view, looking beyond uptight boundaries.
(it’s everest)
Life of Wry 
September 2, 2011 at 11:40 am
Oh Kari…I totally understand this place you are in! Happens all the time to me 😦 Too many things pile up at once. The teenager thing is REALLY hard. Kevin said the most cruel thing to me last week and I had to go cry in the bathroom. I know it’s part of growing up but it hurt nonetheless. Ok, it wasn’t really cruel but it hurt my feelings. Then the next day he sat down with me and played some of his music for me. We shared earbuds. They still want us to KNOW them and understand them. Anyhow, I just got some wonderful news (you know the one) and then today got some horrible news about my rent being raised, by my MIL no less, after I just lost about 16 hours of my work week (downsizing). Guess that is proof I made the right decision the other day huh? (you know that one too) Life is very, very hard sometimes. I wasn’t much help was I? 😦
September 3, 2011 at 6:13 am
i’m wondering how one turns that into creative writing. there is a way, i’m sure, to draw from experiences and the intensity of emotions, to write compelling fiction.
we all have the emotion.. a good writer, i’m guessing, knows how to express it in something other than a journally thing.
September 2, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Whew. I just read your post from yesterday and today. What would a writer do? Just what you did — let it pour forth without caps. Your writing was so vivid, so real that I almost felt like an intruder into your life. But since you opened the door, you must have wanted to allow a peek so means that you accomplished what you intended. Accomplished it very well. You are a writer.
As for the writing every day. I can’t believe how high you set the bar for yourself! Before the book came out, everyone said “You have to start a daily blog” but I resisted because I didn’t want to have to write every day. That’s why my current arrangement is the perfect fit. No expectations. I can post every day, once a week, once a month. Psych-Today doesn’t take you off the blogroll unless you fail to post three times each quarter (that’s once a month — not a lot to ask). I seem to have fallen into a once-a-week schedule but I don’t always stick to it and I love that flexibility. I post when I damn please. I wish you had that option…except having said that I think you had a different discipline in mind when you set “every day,” so I shouldn’t interfere with that.
Well, I do go on. I’m so sorry about your friend’s child.
September 3, 2011 at 6:32 am
Thanks, Toni.
I didn’t realize YOU are setting the schedule with Psych Today (other than the 3x/quarter requirement)… that is a sweet deal, indeed! And you’re doing such a wonderful job with it… each piece is a treasure.. well constructed, well written, AND rich in value. Reading it is time well spent.. and that’s an accomplishment for a writer.
For my blog.. the once/day thing was intended to establish a practice/habit of writing, as when I didn’t do that, I didn’t really write at all. It was meant to sorta force the issue, since I wanted to see if I liked *writing*. And I attempted to lower the bar and minimize the burden by ‘allowing’ as little as a photo caption, so as to relieve the pressure, somewhat.
It works fine, I have to say. About 99 percent of the time (or more, really), i look forward to it, mostly b/c it can be a caption if that’s all I’ve got in me. And more times than not, I expand on that caption, and pretty soon it’s a paragraph.
But that’s rambly, unstructured, narrative and I’m not sure it’s instructive (as an exercise).
For me it’s been fun b/c I’m a journaler anyway and have missed having the outlet (I have a box in a closet that’s got about 30 books, maybe?, full of journal stuff, from the ages… but not the digital age… so the blog’s fulfilling that ‘need.’
But as a writing exercise, I’m not sure. *Maybe* I stay sharp by writing daily. But I’m not expanding into other writing forms, or *working* to express in a compelling way… I’m just writing. This stuff comes easy… but real writing.. I don’t know.
Anyway…
Thanks for the comments. xo