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I’d be lying if I tried to deny my exhaustion; moving and rebuilding Greg’s redwood fence required a lot more gutwork than brains, and I had muscles full of lactates and brains full of mush before I even began. When a guy pays cash in advance, however, and with my truck sitting dead on the driveway, longing for a new front tire, I had no choice. Not really. No rest for the weary and no justice for the poor, but a guy’s gotta keep sluggin’ along. And everybody knows how this kinda tired feels good, because it comes from decent, honest hard work. I know the different kinds and categories of tired—from post-debauchery burn-out to deep-depression eyelid slam to can’t-take-another-step work-tired. Tonight, I work against the last kind, because I have looked forward to sitting down and writing all day…for days. A whole lotta stuff went undone today because I accepted Greg’s job; this one thing absolutely cannot remain undone. That whole thing about needing to write like I need to breathe applies: if I don’t get into this writing and make meaning out of my own intentions, I will go to bed feeling like I’m suffocating. I sit here in my grimy-sweaty work clothes, still misted with sweat and patina’d with dirt and sawdust; my boots still squeeze my two-socked feet, and my arms, shoulders, and hands ache from swinging the framing hammer, jamming the digger against the ground, and wrestling the old posts out of the unyielding dirt. Those posts and male cats shared that common trait—easy to drive it in and hell to pull it out. Yeah, I’d moan and groan, too; and Tom Robbins probably would claim, in all sincerity, that he or his characters heard the posts moaning as they gave-up their bond with the soil. Starving, I shovel crackers and diet Coke into my face, hunger gnawing away at me even more fiercely than my longing for love; I know I should get something decent to eat. Still, I want to do this. Although I have observed the rituals that mark passage from amateur to professional, and although I have blown-up and framed checks from the stuff I have written, I still feel that this little exercise marks a turning point, some sort of writer’s sacrament. If I neglect it, I know I’ll get my poor little self relegated to some nasty, smelly, shit-caked writers’ purgatory; and it’ll take me another quarter of a lifetime to dig my way out of it. Do I over-dramatize this stuff? Hell, yes. I’m not stupid. I know it’s just another "blurty," and like all the other blurties, it may or may not ever find an audience. I write it for myself with the vain wish that maybe someone will look over my shoulder or peek into my heart or lurk around the edges of my feelings, and I’ll get some encouragement, or I’ll win some scathing criticism, or somehow the writing will draw an audience. Still, it means more than just another little journal entry, because I approach it with reverence, wearing my heart on my sleeve, and throwing my whole self up for grabs. Once I made the choices and commitments, they seemed perfectly natural and obvious, and I wondered why I had struggled so long with so much confusion. Of course, I already knew the answer to my own confusion: I really and truly cannot stand success and happiness, so I manufacture these mini-crises to make certain I stay stuck in my own unhappiness and mired in m y own magical mystery. I love this business of building stuff, and I love the feeling of writing. I revere the craft that both demand, and I love the challenges both of them pose. One or the other would suffice to make a life; the two of them together make just enough to fill a life. I need nothing more to command my own self-respect. At least, I don’t need any more titles, vocations, causes, or stuff for my resume. Carpenter by day and writer by night—the balance, the…well, whatever. I should have done it long ago. I’m glad I’ve done it now. What’s different tonight? Initiative. It’s all about the initiative. When I first joined the union and started pounding nails, I did it grudgingly. No, I didn’t do it reluctantly; I did it deliberately. But I didn’t have my whole heart in it, because I still carried around a pretty good dose of bitterness about giving-up full-time writing. Yeah, I grossly had miscalculated how long the novel would take, and the money had run out. The kids already had given-up lots of the luxuries they imagined as life’s essentials, and I knew more sacrifice loomed on the horizon. I knew what I had to do, and I did it dutifully. But we all know that stuff done dutifully comes with bitterness and resentment. And, yeah, I felt scared. Who wouldn’t? I didn’t know whether or not I really could handle the job’s physical demands, and I didn’t know whether or not I had any aptitude for it; after all, I’ve known plenty of wanna-be writers who love the feeling of tying their fingers in knots as they dance the qwertyuiop, and who have no hope whatsoever of producing anything worth publishing. If I attempted turning pro, I ran the considerable risk of discovering that I never would amount to anything more than a dedicated amateur—just another homeowner with some pretty tools and skills for building fences and doghouses. Now that I’ve hung in with the work and nailed against some of the best, I have a lot more confidence. With the development of confidence, I have open opportunities for joy and satisfaction, and I have felt the bitterness slowly evaporate out of my system. So, now I choose it. I don’t do it deliberately and dutifully from harsh necessity; instead, I do it from pure, unvitiated volition. I wanna do it, and I wanna do it with skill, grace, and dignity. And when I first started playing around with the plot for One Little Indian, I don’t think I really believed that I would make it happen. Even looking at Alice Turner’s assurance that I "could make a living as a fiction writer," I didn’t really believe it. I kept messing with the charts, graphs, and blueprints, though. Characters took on lives of their own and the stories unfolded as the characters came to life. I felt presumptuous saying, "I’m working on a novel." How many English professors spend years playing-around with works that never get finished, because fear prevents them from finishing and attempting publication. I easily coulda been one of those professors. When the bullshit-blizzard began at SDSU, though, and I faced the imminent prospect of getting buried under an avalanche of oozy crap, I saw no other choice. Become a full-time professional fiction writer or get crushed. So, I turned pro, and I made a declaration {I was gonna revise that to say "I declared," but the fancier and more pompous expression captures the spirit and mood more precisely; so, yeah, I "made a declaration" about like the thirteen colonies did.} I announced to everyone who held any stake in any part of my life, "I am retiring from professoring and becoming a full-time writer." I took the advance and set to work. Sorta. But I bogged. I bogged, because, the first time I turned pro, I did it on the strength of unrelenting compulsion. Compulsion exhausts. It fades faster than inspiration. It plays-out faster than a top-forty pop tune. It burns-out faster than dry pinecones. How many similes can I pile-up? This time, I do it by choice. I do it with that same pure volition that binds me to carpentry. I make the commitment because I love writing, and because I believe in my characters and their stories. I do it because I understand—and accept—that the Great Author blessed with this gift and this need, and to turn away from the book would amount to blasphemy. Sure, I still have a healthy respect for everything that can go wrong; I have a healthy fear of rejection, and I have a hefty tolerance for criticism and revision. This time, I make these commitments with a better understanding of what’s required to honor them, and I make them willingly. The commitments give me tons of opportunities to manifest the man of me in the work I do. It all seems not just honest and decent, but genuine and authentic. Is there a difference between "genuine" and "authentic" or are they perfect metonymies? Of course, these affirmations come with a pretty clear understanding that I gotta let go of some stuff; and they also come with a pretty clear understanding that they depend on my recovering my own genuine (or authentic) self. All of that, however, has gotta be the stuff for another "blurty." And I need food, a shower, clean clothes, and a nap. Post a comment in response: |
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