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| A few images from Oklahoma |
I do very much believe in writer's drought, however, because I've had personal and painful experience of it, more than once. I'm undergoing a severe drought right now, in fact. I returned from my week-long flash tour of Eastern Oklahoma libraries on Sept. 17, then my husband went into the hospital for yet another operation on Sept. 20. I spent the night at the hospital, then left the next morning about 8:30 a.m. to go home and shower and get ready for a creative writing class I'm teaching at Arizona State U. Before I even left the house Don called me from the hospital and said the doctor had come in and told him that everything looked good and he could go home that day! So I went right back up to the hospital after my class and helped him pack up and fill out discharge papers and brought him home late that afternoon. His post-op doctor's appointment was Friday the 29th, and he had all the the tubes and staples taken out. The lymph node biopsies came back clear. Yay! He's still pretty sore, not tip top yet. He's not cleared to drive for another two weeks, and back to the doctor in six weeks. In the meantime, I'm trying to get my lesson plans for the class in some order.
Am I writing? I am not. I don't know why, except that my brains are not working that way right now. I've been known to produce amazing amounts of work while in the midst of some crisis, so why I can do it sometimes and not others I do not know. Of course, I maintain that intellect isn't the defining element in writing, anyway. Often I find myself creating wonderful scenes or characters, and I have no idea where they came from. I certainly didn't think them up - they sprang from my forehead fully formed. I have an intimation that our brains don't create thought, but are more like radios, and only receive and transmit thought that is out there somewhere.(Who thought it? I don't know. God? My higher self? The collective consciousness? How can you know?)
So, I suppose it only makes sense that sometimes we can tap into something mysterious and brilliant, and sometimes the equipment is on the fritz and we just can't. You can't make it come. You can only be patient and keep trying. I read somewhere that "more than success, the gods love the effort."
During times of drought, I cling to that thought as I pray for rain.
It sounds you've had a very worrying time of it with your husband, poor you (and him!). But that is good news that he is out of hospital and on the road to recovery. I know droughts well. I suppose we writers are not robots, so it is normal we are affected by the stuff that happens around us for better or worse. I do think, though, that sometimes a hiatus can be good for us. It allows our depleted creative subconscious to have a rest and allows ideas to stew away and develop, whether we realise it or not. Good luck and I hope it rains soon ;)
ReplyDeleteSometimes I think writers just need a break. I'm sure the rain will come when it's ready. Glad to hear your husband is on the road to recovery.
ReplyDeleteThe well of inspiration runs dry for us all now and then. When that happens to me, I vow to write a paragraph a day. Usually that gets my brain moving again, but if a paragraph is all I can manage, I will have met my goal.
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