Hummingbugs

Travelertrish quotes Grace Paley on writer's block as a way not to tell the truth. I'm just hungover enough at the moment to take the dare.

Why hungover, you ask? Or how comes the Doc to have overmedicated her sorry self? Simple: it's the holidays, the funk that always comes over me when I am forced (or force myself) to make something like merry with people I normally avoid, in this case a relative whose favorite sport is Look How Much I Have Of Everything You Don't Have Any Of. OK, I'm small and petty even to notice she's playing this game, but somehow at the "holidays" I feel even more than usual like a large dead stump in the middle of a field of weeds (also dead). In order to soften this sensation, I applied her excellent scotch, lots of it, directly to the affected area, namely, my mind. With predictable results. It didn't help, it never does, what was I thinking, etc.

Although I am perfectly willing to tell the truth here, I really don't know what it is. I don't know why the "holidays" have this paralyzing effect on me. I used to think it was the weather, Seasonal Affective Disorder, etc., but I was delighted by yesterday's dreary drizzle, nice for a change, perfect staying-in-bed-with-a-book weather. No problem there!

The book I stayed in bed with is Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, my 65th reading or so, trying to jumpstart myself back into my long-neglected novel, the shitty first draft of which I am oh, 50 pages into and which is unequivocally shitty. Actually, I have two versions of it, and the truth is that I like the other one, the one I'm not working on, better. Not because I'm not working on it but because it's in first person, like I'm channelling the characters. I think I can't possibly get away with this, it's too cute, so I'm working on the one I like less. Or not working on it but obssessing about it anyway. I know exactly what Lamott would say if she knew: first, she'd forgive me. Then she'd gently prod me--perhaps with a little bribe of hot chocolate or something--to just fiddle around with the one I like, just the littlest bit, just peek through the one-inch frame and see what there is to see.

I think I'll go do that now.

Comments

[Pica]

For what it's worth I think you should do the 1st person one. Sounds much more authentic to me. Let it get cute; you can edit that out afterwards.

Merry Christmas from Berkeley. Cody's was the predictable but delightful zoo. We fetched up at the Musical Offering. No cocoa; the cafe had just closed--but lots of wonderful, calm, beauty. Need to go there more often. Not just on Christmas Eve.

[ntexas99]

I agree ... stick with the one that you feel in your gut. You can always change the tense after the fact, if needed.

Dig around, poke and prod, and let the truth be told by letting the words flow. Does it get any better than that?

[fredf]

Well if anybody can prod one into spouting out the words, it's TravelerTrish. I've been at the end of her goad, too, gentle prod rather, like Lamott's. I'm in a similar place, actually have some momentum going in my "book"... moving along rather like a locomotive just before the next bend and the bridge is out! Heck. Full steam, stokers, let's see if we can jump the canyon!