Necessary Frenzy

I’m curious about how many writers are full time in their writing, and how many hold down some other ‘traditional’ role (such as, I imagine, hair dressing, or manning the salad bar at Hometown Buffet). A writer friend of mine and I aways giggle at the writers who, online, allude to their lifestyle that is undefined by any obligations save their manuscript (read: unemployed) while also somehow managing to avoid publication ardently. What do they do? What do they want to do? What is that like? Is it deadening? It sounds deadening.

Now that I’ve graduated and I’m doing some well-deserved latency loafing (trademark pending), I’m getting a chance to put the brunt of my time into writing projects. It’s a mixed blessing; all I dreamed about during my haggard dwellings in the world of Academia was dedicating uninterrupted hours to finishing a book I’d been working on for years (Albeit very irregularly. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to amass a 130k word count while attending all classes, performing in several musical productions each semester, traveling internationally, working full time, learning to cook, keeping up social appearances, and–oh yes–occasionally doing homework. Ha. Ha. I am not at all jaded).

But now that I’ve got these hours I feel a listlessness that, I am sure, comes from a habit of over-valuing a structureless life. All that former activity of my Student Life appears as a necessary frenzy that keeps my inspiration simmering beneath some critical threshold, where it’s healthy and abundant and pleased to see me when, finally, I arrive (covered in bruises and welts and more-than-likely little bits of confetti).

Enter: more projects. Things besides writing. This website is one of them. So is reclaiming my old haunt–an ice cream shop in the town’s center–where I spend frigid afternoons reading Margaret Atwood and startling at the occasional customer. And if I find myself hunched over a sewing machine, so be it. (Not in the ice cream shop. I mean at home).

I think people think I’m kidding when I tell them I’m writing a fantasy novel. I think they probably think this is some long-running joke I have with myself in which I delude loved ones and trusted friends for the singular purpose of giggling about it when I’m alone at the gym, or brushing my teeth.

It sort of is. Except the joke is on me, and my poor family. And my french press because, honestly, between all of us, it’s the one working the hardest on getting this project done.