The summer has come and gone. It is amazing how long and how short two months can feel. I am glad that my wife and I decided not to travel during the summer, because it felt like a real summer. The transition back to school has been lower stress, but it is still a big schedule change, and I haven't handled the hours alone (with baby) as well as I would like. Still, it is nice to have more or less predictable work times (baby naps). Though they are not always work time, since there are chores, and sometimes I am just tired (or mischievous). Have been ruminating on a quote from Steinbeck in the East of Eden Journals, in which he says that “one must distort one's way of life in order in some sense to simulate the normal in other's lives,” because sitting down to write is a distortion of life, but one I can't seem to live without for very long. If I were normal I wouldn't view baby naps as “writing time,” but then, how many of us are really normal?
The more I write, the more I am convinced that the most important trait required is grit. Natural talent and curiosity give you a place to start, but even the most gifted person won't finish their book without grit. There are so many pitfalls and barriers — “I don't have any idea what should happen next,” “I don't like anything I've been able to draft,” “I don't feel inspired.” — and the only thing that gets you past them is to just keep pushing on, no matter how feeble or uninspired your efforts feel. Keep doing it every day, and when you break your daily streak, just pick it up again instead of punishing yourself.
Our country has two anthems.
One the official, bloodstained tribute.
One the dream we have yet to earn.
For the Star Spangled Banner still tramples
on the hireling and the slave
in this beautiful land where
grace and blood are shed
in equal measure.
“But I still believe that the unexamined life is not worth living: and I know that self-delusion in the service of no matter what small or lofty cause, is a price no writer can afford. His subject is himself and the world and it requires every ounce of stamina he can summon to attempt to look on himself and the world as they are.”
— James Baldwin, Introduction to Nobody Knows My Name
June has gone and summer is officially in progress. For the husband of a teacher the summer is more than an atmosphere shift around his daily routine. It is an expansion of the world. Projects become possible and time seems to be more forgiving. For a writer this should mean faster and better progress on his sequel... Shouldn't it?
I'm still alive. Work has been ongoing on the novel, album, podcast, audiobook. It is now the last week of school (you keep close track when your wife is a teacher). I have too many projects. Staying home this summer, but planning on doing work on the house/property. Don't know when I'll find time for my selfish writing/music projects. Mind is uncooperative and greedy and worried about money and a thousand other things. Seems we have to try so hard just to enjoy the treasures God has given in this life. “I can't go on. I'll go on.”
April was tough. I have nothing to complain about, and yet my mind has been restless, writing has been like banging my head against a brick wall, and my confidence in my guitar playing has plummeted. I was more or less productive, but I haven't felt fulfilled and it has been hard to be still and content. I have such great personal ambition, and yet my time and skill is so limited that I get stuck in this cycle of pride and self-criticism that makes it difficult to find joy in creativity. This month I will try to remember that I am not doing any of this to achieve something great. I am doing it because I love it. The process is its own reward.
This is the eternal renewal.
– Virginia Woolf
This phrase from the end of The Waves has been hanging in my mind lately. How everyday we are renewed when we sleep and wake, how relationships fade and then renew as we separate and come back together, how creative energy waxes and wanes, how we celebrate Easter to remember that the tomb is empty.
“Yes, this is the eternal renewal.” And yet even on the mountain of renewal, we remember that we will go down again, that joy is sometimes a plodding thing that we do not know we have until we have been carrying it for some time. Writing, like life, is no paved way. It requires endurance and eternally renewed hope.
Living with Contentment
“I have lived with less than I need, and I have lived with more than I need. I have learned the secret of walking the road of life. Whether I am well-fed or hungry, whether I have more than I need or not enough.”
— Small Man to the Sacred Family in Village of Horses (Philippians 4:12 First Nations Version)
I have seen and heard the famous sequel to this verse used as a motivational statement so often that the context quoted above surprises me. Paul does not say “I can do all things through Christ” after listing his staggering achievements and hardships. Instead, “all things” in this context refers to literal things: his material needs. What can we learn from this during lent?
February actually felt like winter, both physically and spiritually. I felt like I was hunkering down and just surviving. Nothing extreme happened, but I just barely maintained a writing habit. This month is looking pretty busy as well, but I'm going to try and keep chipping away.
Well, what a month. I feel like I am just now getting over the hangover from 2023. I turned 30. All my creative endeavors were a struggle, but I struggled on. Not looking forward to this year because of the election... But I have decided to show my work by my actions rather than my words, as far as that is possible for a writer...