Part of my job involves taking minutes for council meetings.  These become part of public record and are kept forever.  I have books of minutes from the early 1900’s when this little town was first incorporated.  Added to that, minutes are used to refer to later when issues resurface, so the accounting of a conversation or points made must be accurate.  I’ve taken minutes for years and don’t find it difficult.  Most of the time.

It is hard to maintain a simple recitation of what happened and who said what.  I want stories.  Especially since this is such a small town (160 people) I know the stories behind the statements.  I understand why one person feels the way they do, what the real story is behind someone applying to build a fence, and so forth.  Every action, every comment, every opinion, has a story supporting it.  And yet those stories cannot appear in a legal, factual document. 

Another thing that can be occasionally challenging is keeping personal opinion out of the minutes.  When a person shows up acting nice before the council and an hour earlier they were threatening me to get what they wanted, it’s hard not to let that bias slip into the minutes.  What I have found as a writer, when it comes to this problem, is that I think of it as a writing exercise.  How can I professionally let opinion creep in unobtrusively?  Is there a way to slant just the facts?  Of course there is; politicians and reporters do it all the time.  I just don’t want to be one of those people.  And yet, the story is there begging to be at least hinted at, if not told. 

Those stories can’t be told orally, either.  I can’t be a gossip at work.  And so I’m haunted by these stories that hover around me begging to be told, nudging me at the desk, and trying to force my fingers to type things I shouldn’t.  So what is the solution?  Well, gossip to my husband.  And alternatively, snippets of conversations, bits of description, pieces of stories, find their way into my writing.  A murder victim in the newest mystery might bear a similarity to the person who threatened me.  That’s been a topic of posts before, how people should be careful or they’ll end up in novels.  Yet, I find this to be unsatisfying.  A piece of a story doesn’t make that hovering tale happy enough to go away.

I’ve posted about journals before, and maybe that needs to be combined with this challenge of mine at work.  Maybe I need to tell all these stories to myself.  A sort of Peyton Place in the mountains.  Not for publication but to shoo away the words circling my head so I can get on with those pesky minutes.  That actually might be fun.  Of course it might also be a way to avoid other writing.  Funny how one issue feeds into another, one thought leads to repercussions, one word leads to paragraphs.  And minutes lead to stories.  Or I guess a better way of putting is, how fact leads to fiction.

The rain held off enough this morning and my son didn’t have to go to school, so I was able to walk to work.  This roughly one and a half miles is along a narrow two lane road with no shoulders, and with the forest right up to its edges.  As I walked I could see new blooms of trillium, evergreen violets, miner’s lettuce, and salmon berries, the beginnings of sea-foam, the bright green of new growth on all the moss.  

I’ve had interesting experiences over the years of walking to work.  Once I stomped angrily down the road yelling at a cougar to get home because I thought it was our Boxer out on the road.  Once the Department of Fish and Wildlife, in all their infinite wisdom, released a pack of bear dogs on a black bear without checking the road, where my husband and I were walking.  It was a terrifying few moments when an equally terrified bear was caught between dogs and humans.  And once my son and I were interviewed by the Seattle Times and ended up with our photo on the front page in an article about alternatives to driving to work.  That was really strange.

But the thing about these walks that make them so vital to me, and that I have missed, is that they allow my mind to break free from responsibilities, chores, and worries.  I’m allowed to ‘daydream’ my stories and sink into the world of a current work in progress.  Right now I am working on a story that is completely different from anything else I have ever written.  I’m writing it for myself because it’s a story I want to read, not because I think this one will go anywhere.  In a way it’s a path back into the writing world because there isn’t the pressure that exists with writing something to send out to agents.  Even though there isn’t that expectation I still am plotting, building characters, and living in a story world.  The walk this morning allowed me to see where a certain character needed to be headed.  I had her going off in the wrong direction, and the story was starting to pile up against that route.  With the soothing rhythm of walking I was able to see where she needs to actually be and how the rest of the problems will then fall in line.

This has happened before when I’ve been stuck in a particular story.  But until this morning I’d forgotten how vital a walk in the woods can be.  It makes me thankful that the energy levels have come back, that the weather is improving (although I walk in bad weather, too), and that the end of the school year and carpooling to the city is in sight.  I am looking forward to many walks to come.  And many daydreams.

During the process of resurrecting writing from wherever it went, my oncologist told me to think of it as a chore.  I had told him that by the time I finished with the day’s chores, I was exhausted and too empty to write.  So he suggested that I add it to my list of chores, and give it a time that it had to be done.  For example, at eight at night I tell myself, now it’s time for the task of writing.  If I think of it as something I have to do rather than something I want to do, then it feels less like a selfish act.  I know it’s all semantics but it did help start the words flowing.  Well, at least trickling. 

It reminds me of a quote from author Karen E. Peterson, who wrote a book called The Write Type.  She said ‘We get 168 hours every week and if you only give the world 167 hours, no one’s likely to notice.’  She then followed that with, ‘If writing is relegated to the last thing on your list you haven’t learned to respect or cherish yourself as a writer enough to make writing an integral part of your life.’

Ouch.  That makes me squirm.

It also makes me wonder how I define myself.  When asked what I do or who I am, I rarely answer ‘writer’.  Instead I list my job running a town, or talk about my husband or son, or where I live.  Why is that?  Well, because I can’t move past the feeling that writing is a selfish act.  And do I want to be known as someone who is selfish?  Someone who leaves dirty dishes to go write?  Someone who doesn’t fix dinner for the son, to work on that chapter?  Of course I don’t.  In spite of the fact that my husband does dishes and my son cooks.  Well, actually, he can microwave.  The point is, I don’t define myself by describing something that is a deep part of my soul, that gives me peace, that has been part of me as long as I can remember.  

This makes me question what it takes to be selfish for an hour each night, without guilt.  Well, maybe the ‘without guilt’ part is asking too much.  Maybe the question is, what does it take to write in spite of guilt.  I haven’t figured out the answer yet.  But one thing I have figured out is that writing at night is much harder now.  It used to be my favorite, and most productive, time.  But now I prefer writing on Fridays, after the son leaves for school and before the husband gets up.  I know it’s only one day, but that’s not saying I don’t find other moments to write.  It’s just that this is a scheduled time.  And it works in spite of chores and guilt because I can tell myself I can write while he sleeps because any chores will make too much noise and wake him up.  See? I’m still having to justify writing time.

So yes, I force myself to write and call it a chore, and justify it in the mornings by calling it a quiet chore.  But whatever works, right?