For many years now I have been in the habit of writing daily. It is the first thing I do each morning after waking and getting coffee from the bedroom coffee maker. I do not leave the room. I do not get dressed. I prop myself up with pillows, take up my pad and pen, reread what I wrote the previous day, and take off from there. I remain immersed for three to four hours, or until the day’s responsibilities announce their claim on me. This ritual has become habit now, not something I have to force myself to do. Over the years, it has been a grounding response to living in a world over which I often have little control. What I can control (usually) is my stories. Some days the writing goes smoothly, some days it does not, but I’m not bothered much by these vicissitudes because I’ve come to see them as part of a rhythm. Even on the bad days I can usually sense the prospect of good days in the future. In this way I have been able to complete my novels in one to three years.
The Fragile Scaffolding of a Writer’s Life
About a month ago I finished a draft of a new novel (Short of Wonderful), and I gave it to a few trusted readers to critique. I thought I would take a brief break from my daily writing routine and resume in a week or two when my readers’ comments came in. The world quickly launched its attack: there were student papers to grade, a week of traveling back east to visit family, the holidays on the horizon, and then an unexpected family crisis.
Suddenly, just yesterday, I realized that it had been an entire month since I’d begun a day with writing. I was startled. More, I was distressed to realize I’d unwittingly begun postponing my return to writing, even dreading it. Could I retrace my steps and regain my easy relationship to the process? I feared the worst.
This fall an entrancing exhibit by the artist Lesley Dillcame to the Jordan Schnitzer Art Museum at the University of Oregon. The work was big and bold, and while I was viewing it I could not help imagining the psyche of its creator. In a gallery talk I learned that Dill takes great care to structure her life as scaffolding to support the obsessions that become her art. While I don’t know all of what this entails for her, I assume she goes to great lengths to fend off the encroachment of the outside world.
This notion struck me as an apt terminology for all artists. In a culture that undervalues the making of art, every artist and writer must erect firm protective scaffolding. I’ve always thought my own scaffolding—my regular morning writing ritual—was impervious to outside assaults and distractions, to the gale force winds of the human existence. But I was wrong. This last month has revealed my scaffolding to be more delicate than I thought. The work has taken a back seat to other insistent and pummeling forces: house guests, children’s needs, teaching responsibilities, sudden emotional turmoil, even doubts about the value of my current project.
Just today I have gone back to work with huge relief. But I feel a resurgent call to fortify the scaffolding, to check more frequently for shoddy workmanship and the possibility of collapse, to vigorously maintain the haven that allows my obsessions to germinate and come to full fruition.
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