As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I’ve started writing on Tuesdays. Here’s how it went. For the first 2-3 months after Grandpa died, I wrote how sad I was. And then I started writing how I didn’t have anything to write, “nothing to say, finally time to write and no words, what is there that hasn’t been said?.” Pages like this, interrupted by tea breaks and checking email. Then I decided to cheat and started writing emails. This turned out to be not so much cheating as a way to process, grieve and connect deeply with Grandpa’s true love. Instead of Skyping Grandpa I sent weekly email’s to the woman he loved and finally, after months of that my desire to write fiction returned.
This was renewed desire, pretty close to one year after Grandpa’s death, was especially sweet because I have to admit, I’d been toying with the idea of a self help book for a while…. and I was none too pleased about that idea. Not only because Grandpa hated them, but because I wasn’t really sure that there was anything worth saying that hadn’t already been said in that format.
I certainly have lots of helpful advice about health and obviously don’t mind writing and talking about it, but do we really need one more book on how to be happy fulfilled thin smart successful healthy etc etc etc?
So it was with some amount of moral fortitude that discovered a novel idea waiting to be written. I won’t tell you about it; I think that might ruin me for the writing of it. But I did want to mention Scrivner, for all of you who also have the notion of being a writer.
Here’s the link:
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php
I’ll let you look, if you are interested, but here’s the real update on my writing process:
It begins with an idea, but there are many steps in between this idea and a manuscript. Just like the winter weeds though, and the cliched journey up the mountain, it begins with one. One step, one weed, one word on the computer. And one word becomes one outline for one scene and that one outline becomes one chapter, with many single words put together.
I don’t really mind that I don’t have time. If I pull weeds, or shovel dirt or write one sentence and then I get back to teaching or treating patients or cooking or cleaning or being a mom, and it takes me until all my hairs have grayed, I don’t really mind. This is my life to fill, and in which to be fulfilled. So rather than feeling undone and longing for the completed manuscript, or the landscaped yard, I will be fulfilled by the one weed, the one word, the one day.
