I am a quitter. I became one when I withdrew from the athletics
course at the local private school mid-season. I had my reasons. Some would and
did argue that I should have stuck with it, gutted it out, put on my big boy
undies and finished the season. After all, that’s part of what sports are
about. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for cutting your losses,
and the first law of holes. Now I’m thinking about quitting again. Maybe not
outright quitting, let’s call it placing something on the shelf, because we can’t
justify leaving it out all of the time.
Writing is hard. This might sound strange to some people.
Writing is a lot like talking, and few things are easier. Unlike talking,
however, writing gives us the chance to slow down and choose the best words,
not merely reach for the adequate ones we keep on hand, or tongue, as it were.
Writing allows us to organize our thoughts, to be precise in the way we present
them. When done carefully, it mitigates the chances that we will be
misunderstood. When done hastily, however, it is worse than talking because it
has the same jumbled words and free association that talking carries, without
the benefit of voice tone and facial expression to help clarify the broadcaster’s
intent. Consequently, my rule is “at least try to write well or don’t write at
all.” It’s been hard to write well, lately.
Maybe I’m not trained well enough, or maybe I don’t love the
craft enough to find a workaround, but I find I can only think of the next few
lines in advance. It sounds different in my head than it looks in Times New
Roman, so I usually scrap anything more than two lines thinking ahead. After
that I’m following the thread to see where it goes, tweaking and fiddling along
the way. Sometimes I go off and write the wrong thing. Then I have to backtrack
to find where I went wrong and try to fix it. It’s a time consuming process, a
thought intensive process, one I need to work at continuously to get somewhere.
My current position in life does not allow for many huge blocks of time to be
alone with my word processor, and when it does, I find myself fleeing to a
mindless game to clear the head instead of trying to fill it with genuine
dialogue and apt metaphor.
I like writing. I may even love it. I like the rhythm of the
keyboard, and trying to see how long I can go before I have to hear the sound
of the backspace, distinct from the other keys and a slightly awkward reach for
my right hand ring finger. I like to see a sentence that isn’t quite right,
then place a comma or rearrange the words, or pick a better one and fix it. I
like to read what I have written and think, “this guy is smart, I could be his
friend,” which is not a little narcissistic but I am being honest with you and
this is the way I feel. Perhaps what I like most is when I nail it, and I write
something that tricks the reader into thinking they are in another universe.
That makes me something of a magician, and that is what I want to be when I
grow up. But my stream of thought is interrupted a lot and this is nobody’s
fault.
My family needs me. They need my time, they need my
attention, and they need it in periodic bursts. When the kids are awake they
have diapers that need changing, tummies that need feeding, messes that need to
be cleaned up, and most of all, they need to know they are loved. Writing doesn’t
tell them they are loved. Writing tells them that daddy loves the computer.
Same goes with my wife. She works all day and is recovering from surgery. We
only have a few short hours to be with one another while the kids are asleep
(one of them sleeping in her arms). I need these hours to take advantage of
having both hands free and knock out some cleaning, make sure she’s resting,
catch up with her with conversation that is not interrupted by the latest
toddler/infant crisis. Writing doesn’t clean the dishes or the clothes. Writing
doesn’t tell her she is loved. Writing tells her I love the narrative, that I
want my “me” time, that there are other things that are more important than she
is, which really isn’t true.
These obstacles are one of the reasons why I haven’t made
any progress in about a month. I do some planning, get excited to write, then
get stymied by my real life which makes me cranky, then I am rude to
people and have to apologize later and in the meantime, nothing got written. It’s
a net loss for everyone, and this is not what writing is supposed to do.
Writing is supposed to bring joy, hope and wonder to the people, not
frustration. So that’s why I’m thinking about quitting. Or shelving. For now.
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