Somewhere in this blog I have discussed calling the monsters out of the shadows because they shrink in the light. I’ve probably discussed it in some capacity in quite a few places. The gist of the idea is articulated, in my opinion, most eloquently by Brené Brown. For us Gen-Xers, it is applying the “punch the bully in the mouth one time and they’ll shut up” strategy to the bitch in your brain, your other voice (voices for some us). In a different way, it is much like the final rap battle in 8 Mile when Rabbit decides while he may be a bum, he will no longer be Papa Doc’s bitch. And we all are “still standing here screaming fuck the free world.”
I think, in a small way this is what happened last week. A tired sense of excited frustration and intention in the face of a life that is so grand and still gets so sad, a talent that is nothing short of a gift and is still so highly neglected, possibilities that are more endless now than they have ever been that are still judged as limited and impossible, left a feeling of pressure to bursting.
And I am not in the place where I am ready to split myself open.
But, I am in a place where I am ready to let it bleed forth. Not the unhinged manifesto of Jerry Maguire levels – I have burnt my whole life down before. And while I still hold it was necessary, I am not interested in doing it again. But a slower, although substantial, move into getting out of my own damn way is necessary. The alternative is causing gangrene on the inside. Sound dramatic? Then you’ve never been there and I don’t expect you to understand. And that’s okay, we can still be friends.
So, I just said all the things – rational or not, embarrassing or not, vulnerable or not. And guess what? The monster shrinks in the light still stands true. I was able to move through the next few days a bit lighter because I refused to continue to carry that load. I was able to enter into new moments, new ideas, with more headspace, more insight, more clarity. And, as is wont to happen, the path to where I really wanted to be cleared just a little.
The machete came in the form of a book recommended to me by Jordan (told you she was super smart). Process: The Writing Lives of Great Authors by Sarah Stodola takes famous authors – Toni Morrison, Edith Wharton, Joan Didion, Ernest Hemingway, and Margret Atwood are a few my favorites included – and “combines author biography with lively details about writing habits…a sort of group biography through the lens of professional technique.” You can probably see why I am enthralled. I can’t tell you much more about the the format because, as I said, I couldn’t get past the forward and introduction before I had to come here and talk with myself (and you).
First, did you know that Virginia Woolf preferred purple pens? Do you have any idea who else prefers purple pens? I think it’s a sign.
Ok, maybe it isn’t a sign per se, but when coupled with the next quotes, it certainly seems that the right book has found itself into the right hands at precisely the right time.
Noah Charney, PhD is an art historian and a writer. In his forward for the book, Dr. Charney says, “Inventing interesting things to write about, and new ways to convey them, is exhausting…Readers tend to overlook the intricacies involved in bringing a work to completion, and they see writers as a cult of pseudo-magicians, capable of conjuring worlds out of thought, spinning characters from thin air, and surely having a great time while doing so. In truth, a career as a writer is enjoyable, but also lonely.”
Exhausting. It is. It truly is. But it has always felt guilty to say that. It is simply writing after all. – no physical exertion, no physical discomfort, just sitting around with a pen or a keyboard, maybe some chips and a whiskey and you just type. How exhausting is that allowed to be? In true? Very. The validation washed over me. I have found nouns and verbs to be the hardest easiest thing I’ve ever done. More importantly, I am not the best version of myself when I am not doing it.
And my dear readers of which I have maybe five. I get so wrapped up in the production of it all. Will it be good enough, is it worth it, is it too much, have I overstepped, held back, gone too far, been too soft, will this be the piece that creates opportunity, will all of it just be a waste…and on and on. This can be incredibly debilitating. Concern over reception has stopped my hands more than once because honestly, who wants to be rejected, abandoned, criticized. Who wants to be lonely?
“Alone is just where you are. Lonely is a fear that you don’t have an option to be somewhere else.”
April Trepagnier
I had this thought alone on a porch in a different state away from everything familiar. It was then that I realized that, while I was alone, I was not lonely. The difference is important. While I was not in the immediate vicinity of my people, they were still my people. The work that was doing had only separated us physically – not relationally. In fact, this aloneness was supported, encouraged, and recognized as a pretty great idea. In fact, it is so unlike me that some were even proud that I decided to do it at all. I will not be coy, there is always a feeling for me at separation of “what if they don’t come back” or “what if there aren’t there when I come back.” The answer is, of course “while that is highly unlikely, you’ll deal with it when it happens.”
My self-worth is not on the table.
I can be alone when the work requires it. My family will still love me. My husband will still adore me. They don’t expect me to be a martyr to the cause. I can be alone without being lonely.
It is not lost on me that I feel no moral dilemma in skipping book forwards. I am not real sure why I decided to read this one, only that I am glad that I did. It was a pretty good one.
Stodola then takes over at the Introduction, another section of publishing I often breeze right past. And, again, I am thrilled that I didn’t.
While slightly oversimplified, I think one of the defining differences between alone and lonely is fear. Alone is just where you are. Lonely is a fear that you don’t have an option to be somewhere else. I am not worried about being alone when I write. I do, however, worry a great deal about writing making me lonely.
Writing is an intensely personal and intimate activity. I am literally taking the innermost parts of myself and my imagination and placing them in a black and white space for you to do whatever you want to with it. Add to that my preferred style of creative nonfiction, and it is naturally assumed that the writer is always me instead of a created persona that I have created to tell the story. Even in my fiction I have been wary of my words because, well, Stodola did a great job when she said, “You’re never quite sure if you’re writing about someone else, or if in writing about someone else you’re unmasking something about yourself. But maybe that’s the whole point.”
For me, that is the whole point. Whether the creative be fiction or no, I am a lover of those stories that seek to grow understanding between people who want it. In order to achieve that, it is hard (for me at least) to separate myself wholly from the narrative. And even if I could, readers will assume what they want about what’s true and what isn’t. Further, readers will assume what they want about what is about them and what isn’t. For a writer who desires low conflict, this can be a precarious place to be.
The safe idea is to just not write or to just not publish. I really don’t like any of those ideas. I do not know how to achieve connection without vulnerability and I do not know how to achieve vulnerability without just putting myself out there. And while it can be a scary place to be, myself worth is not on the table.
I haven’t even gotten to an author profile yet. If this keeps up, Stodola’s work will find a solid spot on my recommended list.