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When a Writer Goes on Respite

photoLast month, I cleared my plate of a blogging obligations in order to finish this current round of novel rewrites. In those thirty days, I found plenty of time to write.

I spent much of that time reflecting. Some of it lost in aimless TV. A large portion of it devoted to watching Colin Firth in Pride & Prejudice. A little blown on complaining musing about the realities of life. You can see where I’m going with this, right?

I didn’t finish the draft.

I did learn an important lesson, though. Contrary to what I believed, Time is not my problem (though it is certainly a good scapegoat).

For me, Time is like money: the more I earn the more I spend, and not always on the things for which it was intended.

IMG_2012I don’t regret taking a break from blogging. When I wasn’t lost in Jane Austen or Jane Austen-like movies, I made Thanksgiving dinner with the hubby. Fired up the record player with my mom’s favorite Elvis Christmas album. Put up Holiday decor with the kids. Prepared for and celebrated the birthday of “Nanci” (a doll, mind you, but a very special member of the family…imagination runs rampant in our house, and only a little of that is mine).

Is there any wonder why a writer with a life might take years (and sometimes a full decade) to finish a novel?

I could pout about getting little done on the draft. Well…actually, I did pout. In my journal, in a late-night email to a friend, in a out-of-the-blue argument with my spouse who wisely did not take it on and sent me packing with my laptop to the nearest coffee shop. Pity-Party U.S.A. But then I read this on Amy Shearn’s Twitter feed, a quote from Sarah Ruhl’s 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write:

[T]empting as it may be for a writer who is also a parent, one must not think of life as an intrusion. At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with the writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion.

IMG_2002Lesson learned. Everything I did over the past several weeks–from the tiny rewrites all the way to the photos I took of Nanci in her birthday dress and Nanci “blowing out the candle”–carries weight and importance in my journey as a writer. I mean, you cannot bypass the making of chocolate pie or the building of Christmas Town just so you can finish rewriting chapter 8.

The key for me is not in finding balance between life and writing but in becoming willing to participate in both without seeing one as the enemy of the other.

How did your November shape up?

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3 Lessons for the Traveling #Writer

Traveling this week? I wish you disco hotels and fancy desserts and a good friend to boot. (This post originally appeared back in 2012)

Lesson 1: Whenever you can, take the train.

There’s something romantic about boarding the train, about climbing the narrow, metal stairs, suitcase in tow. About following the pull to your left and turning into a cabin full of rows and promise. You take your seat, gaze out the window, and float along with a landscape enveloped by the season. On this day, by a heavy snowstorm; the city streams by in a soft, white glow.

Quiet. Like a dream.

The conductor asks for your ticket. He punches twice, smiles once, nods and moves on. You take a picture to mark the moment.

Lesson 2: Whenever you can, take a friend.

Certain bits and pieces of life are best experienced in the presence of someone who puts you at ease, as you move through new spaces. Someone who’s traveling that same journey with you, who shares in your excitement about the future, about the things you want to do and the stories you want to write. Someone who looks you straight in the eye after you’ve said there’s no way you could apply for that two-week writing residency. Ever. Life would never allow for such extravagance, you say. To which she says, Maybe not right now. Reminding you that now isn’t the same as never.

Lesson 3: Whenever you can, take risks.

Say Yes to a late-night dessert. Order the gelato drizzled in salt and olive oil and find yourself saying, “Who knew.” Stay up until two-thirty in the morning, even though you know what “tired and over forty” feels like.

Soak up the fancy of a hotel you might never have visited before, except by the random choice of an online reservation site. A hotel dressed in straight lines and sharp angles and silver and lights and – somewhere in your room – hidden disco balls. A hotel with mirrored tiles that fracture your image and make you believe for a second that you really are living out a dream.

Make a list of all the things you will do this year, ignoring the committee in your mind that presses you with “impossible” and “come on!” and “who do you think you are?”

Write about “gasp-able moments,” sage advice learned from a writer friend’s young son.

And on the ride home, when you realize the train will travel backwards the whole way, sink into your seat and take in the irony of it all, how you’re being pulled out of the dream and back into the day. As if to say, Grab hold: of the energy, of the inspiration, of the call to take risks.

Because here we are, only once. There’s no guarantee you’ll succeed just by trying, but there’s promise to fail if you don’t.