In seven days I will be boarding a plane to Mexico City.
Air Canada has a direct flight from Vancouver and before I can say Guacamole, tap my heels three times, and beg for more air in the cabin…I’ll be there.
I am trying to get ready for this writing conference in San Miguel, though I’m not quite sure how to do that. I am nowhere close to having finished my ‘project’. (Like the artist formerly known as Prince, ‘the project’ is formerly known as a manuscript, some might even refer to it as a book.
Words matter. And words like ‘manuscript’ and ‘book’ with their suggestions of magnitude, scare me to my core and I am SO not interested in jinxing this project.)
I signed up for the full-meal deal conference, which means I get to pitch to an agent. Exactly what I am pitching remains to be seen. If I can’t even admit I am working on something, how on earth will I pitch this nebulous thing that has no name?
You can see my problem here? Me too.
In spite of the aforementioned, I keep working on whatever it is I’m working on. The clock ticks. The clock tocks. The tides come in. The tides go out. Fog blankets the shore and then recedes to a horizon of glowing white. Ducks land in a scattered mess. Ducks line up in a uniform row. The smooth rhythms of the world carry on…
but my mind, like an EKG diagram of a heart attack, vascillates wildly between chucking all of it, declaring every single word complete & unadulterated shit, and giddy fleeting moments where I dare to think bits of it might be okay.
In between that? I blog, fiddle with Facebook, eat my greens, go for walks and pass myself off as a normal member of society.
Sometimes it works.
I think you should turn all these blogs into one big blog book! I find your thoughts and writing style quite remakable and utterly enjoyable! I’d buy it!
Or you could write a book about “writing the book”, I’d buy that too! 🙂
Karen, thank you for being such a supporter. You’re always so encouraging.
It’s funny too, that your comment came just as I was sitting here and wondering what the heck to write about or why I keep bothering with it.
But I’m realizing, it’s more like the blogging keeps bothering me, rather than the other way around.
I’m finding that having this arbitrary responsibility keeps my writing channels open and enables me to stay true to the discipline of showing up every day to do this.
And then to get your enthusiastic comment is simply a big fabulous layer of indulgent cream cheese icing on the cake. Thanks honey!
So you’ll be away for Oscars? The Book Club? I can’t keep up. You go, girl! My head spins. I think I’ll retreat to the 18th Century.
Sharon, I have no idea either. I can’t make myself look too far ahead, which tends to wreak havoc on planning…I think the 18th century sounds like a fine place 🙂
I’m with Becca – I have lots of “projects” in my head, but none are anywhere near making it to paper. I’m confident, however, that you’ll learn to noodle your fish out of the pond, and if you cast a big enough net, jellyfish come up by the ton. Maybe this conference will teach you how to noodle or give you a big net. Be confident! I’ll add my love and wishes for luck to Becca’s to give you an added boost.
Sharry, trust you to know that jellyfish come up by the ton. That is a very encouraging thought (probably not so much for the jellyfish but I’m speaking on a metaphorical level). I’m going to check into the noodling and netting workshops. Surely they’ll have some!
Thank you for the love and luck wishes, not to mention the wonderful stories about fishes.
Love the ‘beg for more air in the cabin’! I thought you were so well-traveled you didn’t deign to notice such frivolities as oxygen by now. It’s good to push yourself – I haven’t done a writers workshop in years, but I remember the last one, where I had to take my work into the private confab with The Author Himself (I refer to the warm & friendly and yet completely intimidating Andreas Schroeder; to me at least) and my knees could have hired out as a performance act on their own. Funny how it’s like a near-death experience (us creative folk can wring palavering drama out of anything) just showing someone the flotsam from my brain!
Have a wonderful time, abandoning all expectations, knife between your teeth and sailing into the ferocious headwinds. Write when you find work, as the saying goes!
Oh Laurie, let me tell you, I have to practically put a paper bag over my head in hopes that I can gasp some extra breaths out of those stingy tubes called planes.
And of course you’re quite riht that we can wring palavering drama out of anything. In fact, what I really like is that you used the word palavering, and that now I’ve been able to use it too. Bonus!
I can see the knife between my teeth. Actually, truth be told, I actually had a total visual of Johhny Depp with the knife between his magnificent molars…but I must be digressing yet again.
Ferocious Headwinds R Us.
The writing life is so amorphous, isn’t it? I have a ton of “projects” in my head, and that’s where they seem to stay. At least you’ve made a start at giving yours some legs!
And maybe this whole conference will be just the kickstart/inspiration you need to set it running 🙂
Luck and love to you…
Hey Becca, thanks for the luck & love, it would appear I need it!
I love the word ‘amorphous’. I think that alludes to the quality of writing that is rather like nailing Jell-O to a wall, trying to catch a jellyfish or grabbing a fish out of a pond; wiggly and prone to slide off the nails, slippery and oh-oh-oh-so-elusive.