WordSisters

Category: Creative process

  • Write Anyway

    Every birthday I consider what the past year has brought and what I hope the upcoming year will bring. This year as I entered a new decade, my focus was also tempered by the awareness that my time isn’t unlimited, and I want to use it well. What will the coming days and years consist of? Family and friends, health upkeep, travel, fun and for me, writing. 

    At first, asking what role writing will play in my life seems silly. Creative writing isn’t something you have to retire from. I can write as long as the words and ideas come. But the deeper question is—What are my expectations about publication?

    Widely published authors like Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates can continue publishing as long as they care to. It’s a different matter for the writers I know, who have a modest number of publications. Like it or not, the marketplace may decide for them. Because it’s a personal and potentially painful decision, writers don’t always discuss the dilemma.

    In the past 20 years, I’ve written two book-length memoirs, but I’m not seeking publication for either of them. I learned what I could about writing books, but it wasn’t enough. The real gift is what I discovered about myself through the writing process. I’m proud of myself for doing the work. I’m at peace with the idea the books won’t be out in the big world. 

    Instead, I’m focusing on writing short memoirs, essays and blogs. My talents and skills are better suited to short pieces. Most years I publish one or two. Not a breath-taking record, but enough for me. Knowing my words and ideas find an audience in an anthology, literary journal or blog is plenty. 

    Publication plays a small part in my commitment to writing. I write because it helps me make sense of my world.

    Two quotes sum up my outlook. The first comes from a blog by Amy Grier who was struggling with her writing and the state of the world in November 2020. Her thoughts are still relevant:

    “Writing tethers me to the world in a way nothing else does . . . I don’t know who will be president, what’s happening to my country, even what will happen to me. But I’m going to write anyway. It’s my remedy for despair. It’s how I will survive.”

    The next comes from an interview with Margaret Atwood, who offered a few rules for writers. After making practical writerly suggestions, she also said this:

    “Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.”

    For as long as it pleases me I will honor my creative nature and write anyway.

  • Quilting My Way Out of COVID

    In February, I started planning a queen-size bed quilt. I waited until after the holidays so I’d have a big time-consuming project to help me get through the long uncertain months while COVID still raged. Who knew when I’d be vaccinated or when we’d be safe? 

    I’d grown accustomed to the restrictions. Aside from grocery store clerks, the only people we saw were our sons and only for a few minutes. When they visited, they hovered near the front door never taking off their winter jackets—all of us masked. With everyone else, it was phone calls or Zoom visits.

    Time was heavy on my hands. Cutting and arranging little strips of color one square at a time was how I’d keep sane until spring when we could see friends and family outside. 

    At one level, I was immersing myself in a creative process involving color and texture—a visual challenge that has always attracted me. But part of the appeal this time was creating order, making sense of something when so many things outside my four walls didn’t make sense. Day by day I completed squares and made visible progress when the sense of progress out in the big world was tenuous. 

    As March gave way to April, more people became vaccinated, including me. Winter eased up and I could be outside with friends again. In May and June, I began cautiously approaching a more normal life: seeing vaccinated friends, gardening, walking, and socializing.

    I had less need of my quilting project, but it wasn’t finished. Like COVID, the project had lasted too long. I was so ready to be done. 

    During the past week as I quilted the pieced top, batting, and back, I became intimately familiar with every inch and all the places where a seam wandered or a square didn’t align. But as my dad used to say when my husband fretted about a home repair’s small imperfection, “A guy riding by on a motorcycle probably wouldn’t even notice that.” 

    If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have said the best thing about this quilt is that it’s DONE. 

    Today, I’m again pleased with the cheerful colors. 

    The quilt project served its purpose and its history will fade with time. A year from now, I hope only pleasure in the quilt’s color and pattern remains vivid. 

  • Treasure Hunt

    Periodically, a writers’ group I belong to has a writers’ retreat. This weekend we stayed at The Anderson Center in Red Wing, Minnesota.

    The Anderson House in February 2015

    It’s an inspiring place—a stately old home set on acres of land with a sculpture garden on the grounds. There’s a sunny library filled with novels, volumes of poetry, memoirs, histories, and art books. Many were written and contributed by the Center’s guests. In each of the bedrooms, there are journals in which previous visitors (including some well-known writers) commented on their stay. Often they mentioned a breakthrough and expressed gratitude for the Great Things they accomplished . . . which was a bit intimidating.

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    Contemplative view from my window, minus the other treasure hunter

    On Saturday morning, I sat at my desk and stared out the window.

    Outside, a young guy in a hoodie and camo pants moved among the trees, sweeping a metal detector across the lawn. He squatted, dug up something with a trowel, then repacked the dirt, and smoothed it out.

    What could he possibly have found—a bottle cap? A quarter? The Anderson House is nearly 100 years old. Maybe a long buried artifact had worked its way to the surface.

    Inside, I too was treasure hunting. I sifted through files, piles of words, scraps of images, mining my mind for a memory or a line to spark inspiration.

    We both worked doggedly at our tasks.

    I hoped to uncover an idea that would justify my presence there, so I’d feel worthy of the gift of time.

    Quickly I covered up that wasps’ nest of self-doubt and tamped down my frustration. Smoothed over my prickly worries. Don’t be so driven. That’s not how inspiration works.

    I reminded myself: Just spend the time. Do the work.

    It will come.