Circumscribed passions

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10705607.post-11209671909971174132007-04-05T06:49:00.000-07:002007-04-05T06:57:00.931-07:00Circumscribed passionsI’ve been thinking recently about my early days of writing, in the late eighties and early nineties before I was published and I had to carve writing time out of life. My kids were young. I started writing when my second child went off to preschool three mornings a week, although I did manage more hours than that, most times, because my parents lived on the same property with us and my mother would take the boy pottering in the garden (the kid hasn’t pulled a weed since he was five, which may tell you something about the difficulty of infecting a kid with your own particular love.) Back then, I would do the school run, then sit down and plunge into my ongoing fictional dream, coming out reluctantly when the clock nagged me to leave for pickup duty. Then when the kids were old enough to start in on after school sports and piano lessons, I would take my oversized clipboard and my legal pad, prop it against the steering wheel, and write for an hour in the afternoons. It isolated me against friendships with the other parents, but it got the books written. Later on, I was a published author, with contractual obligations to produce words. This was great, because I actually had an excuse to do what I wanted to, and didn’t have to justify my addiction to the clip board and writing pad. But it also meant that my passion became a job, which inevitably took a little of the sparkle out of it. A superb job, and it was still occasionally a battle to work the writing life in and around the rest of life (Summer vacation is coming—aaugh! Or, I have to finish this first draft before school lets out on Dec 17th or my kids will hate me forever!) Back then, it was the kids who set the boundaries on my writing life, because kids have to be fed and transported and noticed. And now I find I’m in an oddly similar situation with a husband (who is doing really well, thanks for asking) whose mobility problems mean that he needs someone around to do things for him and listen to make sure he’s not headed for trouble, like when he sees the massively heavy rechargeable lawnmower sitting out and tries to be helpful and put it away, leaving his walker behind to do so… So I’ve arranged with his assistant and general factotum to come in full time, a thirty-five to forty hour week, and that’s where my life is, during those hours. I shop, I go to the gym, I see my dentist, and I write, because I cannot focus on two places at once. The downside is that I have this massive rewrite pressing down on me, despite the generosity of spirit exhibited by Bantam when it comes to deadlines. But the upside is, I’m rediscovering the thrill of writing within limits. If I only have thirty five hours a week to focus on the book, by God it’s a tightly focused thirty-five hours. I break to make tea, eat lunch, and answer the phone, maybe half an hour total throughout the day, and then it’s back into the book. I’m finding that, as happened back then, I tend to think about the book more. I always think about what I’m writing anyway, especially a first draft, but this is more like actual writing, but just suspending the part where the words are being set down. And there’s no delay and dithering, no taking leisurely side-trips into other peoples’ books (novels or research) while I’m at work. The car comes up the drive, I take my coffee and have my shower, walk into my study, and flip the switch. I’m probably being the world’s worst Pollyanna, seeing the bright side of a black hole. On the other hand, there may be something to this nine-to-five business. I’ll have to try it in the future, not permitting myself to write to my heart’s content. But now I have to go, because it’s time to make the coffee, eat the breakfast, and get ready for the car to come up the drive.Laurie R. Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201210182777418812noreply@blogger.com