Ever Had One of Those Weeks?

I have been incredibly crabby over the past couple of weeks. I don’t know quite what to blame it on. Sometimes these moods just come and go like the tide. Part of it may be the fact that our air quality here in the Phoenix area has been horrible, and high ozone has always done a number on my head. Two solid weeks of low grade headache would make anybody crabby. I also might blame the mood on my looming deadline. My WIP is due in to my publisher next month, and every day I think, this is the day I’m going to finish. And every day, the damn ending keeps getting farther and farther away. Every minute I spend doing something other than writing causes me great anxiety.

But those bills have to be paid and meals made and doctor appointments kept and meetings attended. The state of my house is beginning to depress me. I manage to keep things clean and tidy enough to forestall the Department of Health, but that’s about it. My long-suffering husband bought me a Hurricane Power Scrubber a couple of days ago (at my request. It wasn’t a clueless anniversary present or anything like that). I thought that having a power scrubber would make short work of cleaning the shower, so I was all excited to give it a try. The instructions say that you have to charge the scrubber for 24 hours before the first use, which I did. Then I rushed into the bathroom, I clicked on the appropriate scrubber head, gave it a couple of test whirls, lowered it to the shower floor, and…nothing. It seems our power scrubber is a dud.

I was immediately plunged into unreasonable despair. Sometimes it feels like nothing is easy. Why oh why couldn’t I at least be able to clean my shower without it being an ordeal? Don will return it tomorrow (he has one of those pesky doctor appointments in a couple of hours, which always makes me a bit nervous), and I hope he’ll be able to exchange it for one that works.

I’m sure that once I finish this book and get it off my hands, I’ll feel better. When I re-read parts of the manuscript, I’m pleased with the way the book is shaping up. When I next write to you, Dear Reader, I anticipate that the air will have cleared, Don will have gotten a good report from the cardiologist, the book will be done or nearly so, and my shower will be sparkly clean. I live in eternal hope. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. Isn't there?

The Seasons of an Artist’s Life, or Been There, Done That

As he was ringing us up, the very good looking, very young and studly clerk asked us, "So, are you celebrating tonight? Going to a party? Having some green beer?" It was St. Patrick's Day and my husband Don and I were standing at the check-out counter at Trader Joe's.

"No," I said. "Been there, done that."

"Don't worry," he told us, "I'll take up where you left off."

I thought of this when I read Rick's entry on this blog yesterday. He noted that he no longer has the same energy he had in his youth, and though still creative and infinitely more experienced, one's "fire burns nowhere as hot as it once did."

I know what you mean, Rick. When I was a kid, I started writing stories as a distraction from family trauma. I created worlds and escaped into them. I remember with fond nostalgia the days I would write for hours on end, lost in my stories, feeling an actual love for my characters as though they were my real friends or family or lovers. (Sometimes I loved my characters more than certain friends or family or lovers.) I have a much more business-like relationship with my fiction these days. I don't have the passion I once had. Just more skill.

Well, to everything there is a season, so the Bible says. The body and the brain sputter and fade out eventually. Of course, I never really thought that talent or genius originates in the brain, anyway. Years ago it occurred to me like a flash of lightning that your brain is just like a radio transmitter that picks up inspiration from the Big Mysterious Place and allows you to transform that inspiration into action in the physical world. It's just that as your receptors fray you have a little more trouble picking up the signal.
In other news, I am so close to finishing this new book. Every day for the past two weeks, I've gotten out of bed and thought, "Today's the day!" Thus far it hasn't been.

I had a rather painful writing day today. I sat in front of my computer and did my duty with gritted teeth. I typed a lot of words, most of which I’ll either have to take out later or move to a different scene. But I did it, by damn, and I’m hoping I dug out a lot of slag that has a piece or two of gold in it that I can use later.

I never know why one day is better than another when it comes to writing. Each book seems to be a whole new order of creation for me, and demands its own unique method of coming into being. I’ve been known to outline before I begin when I think that would help me clarify the direction of the plot in my own mind. I have also simply started writing, usually at the beginning, but I’ve started in the middle and the end, as well. More than once I’ve begun a novel on the fly, and then gone back and created an outline because I’ve gotten myself into a muddle and can’t quite figure the way out.he middle of a novel, there may come a moment when you wonder if you're ever going to be able to get it done. You know where you want to end up, but you're not entirely sure how you're going to get there. Sometimes I feel frightened, and wonder if I still have it in me. Will I find my way out of this maze, and do it in such a way that I bring the reader along with me?

It’s not like this has never happened to me before, and I must remember that miraculously it always works out. As I write the first draft, my beginnings never do match the end, for somewhere in the middle of the story, I changed my mind about this character, or this action, or this story line. I try not to waste time by going back to the beginning and fixing it to fit my new vision. No, no, that way lies madness. I can get (and have gotten) caught up in an endless merry-go-round of fixes and never reach the end. I just have to keep going until the book is done. I love writing, but I hate the pressure of trying to get the manuscript done by a deadline. Sometimes I ask myself, do I have to do this? Really, would the world fall apart if I turned it in a couple of weeks late?

Would it?*
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*I'll never know. I'm too neurotic not to do whatever it takes to get the thing done in time.