Author: Lisa

Guilt

/ Lisa / 8 Comments

Over the years I have struggled (and lost) to overwhelming guilt whenever I wrote.

You know what I mean. How dare you take time to sit and write, when there are dirty dishes in the sink? When dinner has to be made, eggs collected, dogs fed, etc., etc.

If it wasn’t the specter of chores slapping me with guilt, it was a little voice whispering that my writing would never benefit the family, that I needed to do something to help out more.

Then of course there’s the guilt for taking time to write ‘when you know you’re really not any good’. That’s the nasty inner guilt-slinger again.

Today is a very wet day in the woods. Raining, after days of rain. A perfect time to build up the fire, put on the kettle, and write. Right? Until guilt reared up. So first I went out into the rain and planted several things that were gasping in too-tiny pots. Into bigger pots, and some into the ground, went bell peppers, thyme, marjoram, parsley, costmary, lovage, sage, golden bush, forget-me-nots, beans, peas, and…well you get the idea. I came inside in late afternoon soaked.

Don’t get me wrong. I love that feeling of coming inside cold and wet, knowing you’ve accomplished something. There have been many, many times I’ve worked out in the rain. In the Pacific Northwest, if you wait for good weather, you’ll never get anything done. I remember days of climbing up into the woods with my father to repair the pipeline that brought water to a water wheel and generated electricity for us. Coming back down covered in mud, soaking wet, hauling a soggy backpack full of tools, smelling like pipe glue. I loved coming inside, where my mother would have tea waiting. Or hot chocolate and cinnamon toast. A reward for the work.

And that’s what I realized today. Writing is my reward for work. I have to ‘earn’ the words. If I do something first, I am then justified in taking time for myself. It’s stupid when I spell it out like this because no one puts that expectation on me. My husband is the first one to tell me, leave everything and go write. Matter of fact, he’s doing the dishes right now.

If the only way I can silence guilt is to buy it off by doing some chores first, then I guess that’s what I’m going to have to do.

Now what I need to learn is how many chores is enough. Because I also have a tendency to do so much that I end up too tired to write, or with no time left in the day. But oh well. One lesson at a time.

Meadow Rue

Minutiae

/ Lisa / 3 Comments

A stressful week on top of getting slammed with allergies convinced me to stay home from work today. Instead of staring at government words on paper I’m staring at my words on paper. Plodding through the editing process. I made a pot of tea, opened up the document, prepared to knuckle down and work all day. And the very first sentence I saw was this:

The fire was stoked and beating back the chill in the old house.

Okay, easy to fix. Even I could see that without looking at editor comments. Well, after the fact of course. I didn’t see it when originally writing it. The sentence quickly became:

The stoked fire beat back the chill in the old house.

And then I got stuck. The editor suggested ‘of’ rather than ‘in’. I spent so much time going back and forth that I came here  instead.

Really, is such a small word worth such indecision? It appears so.

‘Of’ makes me think of an old house that’s always cold, even in summer. Damp maybe, with that smell of something closed up too long. It speaks of a house not lived in, not loved, or maybe lived in once by a nasty old lady with binoculars.

When I think of ‘in’ I imagine there is an outside force making the house cold at this particular moment. Which is the case here as it’s winter, the protagonist is alone in a home she doesn’t belong to yet, and her mother is back making demands.

So I’m going to stick with ‘in’. It feels right to me.

And I’ve now spent half an hour debating between two-letter words. I do believe though, very strongly, that it’s this level of detail that makes a story. Just the right word in just the right place. Or at least what I perceive to be just the right word.

Dang, here’s another two letter word.

Cody opened up the journal. That just became, Cody opened the journal. Why didn’t I make that simple change while writing the story initially? Who knows. At least it was pointed out to me before going to print.

At this rate I’m going to spend all day on the first paragraph in this chapter. But at least I’m not at work, and the tea is still hot, and the next paragraph will be there tomorrow. For today, as they say, the devil is in the details.

I wonder how that expression came in to being. I refuse to google it and research it and delay my next two-letter word stumbling block.

Back to work.

My writing companion watching chickens

My writing companion watching chickens

Priceless Words

/ Lisa / 8 Comments

I’m in the middle of The Book of Killowen by Erin Hart, and came across the following passage that made me stop with my mouth practically hanging open. The character is talking about Irish  illuminated manuscripts.

“Well, think of it: there used to be whole libraries full of books like this, copied out by hand…all the time and effort those poor buggers the monks put into each one. We take it for granted now, don’t we – the printing press, the copy machine, the Internet. I mean, words lose their value, in a way, don’t they, when you’re drowning in them?”

So many things jumped into my poor brain. How computers have reduced penmanship for one. But we are drowning in words and I think that has cheapened them. Look at how we contract into slang for twitter and texting. Look how fast and easy it is to share a quick post on Facebook rather than writing out a letter, addressing the envelope, going to the post office for a stamp.

Then there’s the old debate among writers about using a keyboard or paper and pen. Obviously we use what works best for us. Personally I love the computer because I type faster than I write and when those words are flowing that’s valuable.

Sometimes though, there will be a need, an urge, to slow down. To pick up a pen, place it to paper, and watch each letter form. To see the birth of a word slowly, trailed in ink.

I prefer to take notes by hand because the material sticks in my mind. If I type notes, the information doesn’t seem to fix onto the brain cells. It’s as if that slower formation of words gives my thoughts time to absorb.

So now picture those ancient illuminated manuscripts. Think about the time each and every letter took. And not just the time to form the letter but also the time to make the paper, gather the nuts and herbs and bark to mix and create the ink. All that work before being able to even dip the quill and create an individual letter, a whole word, that became art.

As a writer, I strive to make words into story and am happy if it comes out readable. A much lower level of standard than those monks, for whom each individual letter was highly valued.

So what do you think? Do we undervalue words now? Have they become cheap? Or maybe it’s not the words that are cheap these days, but our time to write. We carve out a few seconds in the day to type out a quick tweet, rather than sitting down on a Sunday afternoon with pen and stationary to answer letters.

My oldest sister still sends out cards and letters. With note cards she sometimes makes herself. I value those.

Even though (I’m ashamed to admit) I rarely take time to answer.