"I try to live life as it lives itself, rather than agonizing over making it more to my liking. Like the Stoics, I believe there’s a grand design for each of us; we simply have to let it take us along."
New York Times reporter David Brooks asked readers over 70 to send in essays evaluating their lives. These Life Reports are fascinating.
In the spirit of the holidays, I'm sharing a story called "Dear Santa” with you. I wrote it a couple of years ago right after Christmas when I struggled with telling my daughter about Santa. I have no moral qualms about the idea; I like fables and myths and traditions. I just couldn't get the words out of my mouth when talking to my daughter. So I wrote about believing in something when you struggle with feeling ambivalent about it.
This story was the winner of a contest and is found in the On the Brink, Volume 2 anthology. If you want to support an indie press, buy the anthology here.
So here you go--a Santa story for adults. Hope you enjoy.
I’m reading “A Moveable Feast” by Ernest Hemingway and he talks about his writing routine, including how he would stop writing when he knew what was going to happen next so that the following day he could easily pick up where he had left off. He also said this:
“I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”
To get to that deep level of writing Hemingway is talking about, you need to spend sufficient time to drop down into the writing, to enter a state similar to meditation. I’ve been writing for a long time; I wrote my first story was when I was seven years old. But I have seldom had long periods in which all I did was write; I’ve almost always also been in school or working, which meant my natural writing flow and routine were interrupted and had to fit in around my life.
But there have been two periods when I was between jobs and able to focus solely on my writing. Both lasted about six-eight weeks. This was before I had children, so I was able to wake up, go to my desk, and work whenever and however I wanted. And this is what I learned about my “writing well.”
Other writers have used the well as a metaphor for where the stories and images and words come from. Because these things often feel submerged and brought forth or dug up in some way. But writing also feels like a muscle to me. During both of these concentrated writing periods, when I started out I produced less (four-five pages) than I did toward the end of those times (eight-ten pages). My endurance built up until I reached my natural, comfortable rate of production, which seemed to be in the eight-ten pages range.
Unlike Hemingway, I did not stop when I knew what was going to happen next, or not exactly. I would write an entire chapter/section during each sitting. I often knew what the next chapter/section was going to be, so in that sense I knew what was going to happen next, but I also liked the feeling of completion before I stood up from my desk. Eight-ten pages, in addition to being a comfortable amount of pages to produce, also corresponded to roughly a chapter for me.
There were a few chapters/sections that were longer than the others, 18-20 pages or thereabouts. And on those days I would push through to complete the writing, because for me it’s always better to get through a whole first draft and fix it later. If I stop part of the way through, as it seems Hemingway did, it is harder for me to reenter that dreamy/zone-like state.
Those few times when I wrote past my natural limits, it was fatiguing, the way running too long and pushing your body too far are fatiguing, only the exhaustion was in my mind and somewhere else. I guess that place was the well. I would feel empty for two-three days after a big push, and despite any will or discipline or intention on my part, I could not produce until I was filled up again. It felt a lot like muscle fatigue. And during those times I would read, work out, watch movies. Sometimes I could make notes, but I just could not write. I had nothing left in me.
So I think Hemingway is probably right that it’s smart to not empty the well, although I was always too scared to risk losing the thread of the chapter to stop partway. Maybe if I get another concentrated writing time I will experiment and see what it’s like to try his method.
One other thing I found interesting…once I was done with my day’s writing, and that usually was sometime between 12-3 p.m., depending on when I had started and how well the writing had gone, I would then go work out, shower, eat lunch, etc. And I would try to turn off my writing brain, think about other things. It was always when I was distracted (and most often when I was showering) that the perfect idea or solution to a problem I had encountered in the book would come to me. Maybe showers help refill the well too.
Zoe has made a new friend. We adopted this puppy today. She's 10 weeks old and probably a Schnauzer mix. She was found with her siblings in a box on the side of a road.
She and Zoe bonded right away. We thought about naming her Frida but Zoe says her name is Sally. I guess that's how these things happen.
So far Sally has shown a lot of patience and calm. We keep encouraging Zoe to put her down but so far it's a losing battle.
Zoe liked Foster the People and grooved on dad's shoulders.
This morning we are all tired. We'll see how much energy we have for the rest of the ACL weekend. Tonight has some of the best acts but I don't know if the munchkins can handle two days in a row.
It was our first outdoor festival with kids and we definitely learned a lot. And there were about 100 things that went well, better than we could have expected. But we were also plain lucky that the kids and fate conspired with us so we all had a good time. Nate and I are both a little bit nervous about our luck holding for another jaunt out to Zilker Park.
I Tweeted about two recent temporary obsessions today and I wanted to write more about them. I go through these phases. I get enthralled with someone or something for a few days and then move on to something else. F. Scott Fitzerald, Anna Wintour, Shirley Maclaine, and Andy Warhol are some recent examples. These interests don’t make any logical sense. I will happen upon something and it catches my attention for a little while, that’s all. Some people would call that Something Shiny Disorder.
My most recent T.O.s are Jean-Michele Basquiat and Bill Cunningham. I was watching an Andy Warhol documentary and that led me to Basquiat. I then watched Julian Schnabel’s movie, Basquiat, and a documentary about Jean-Michel (both available on instant Netflix streaming and probably a few other places). I was intrigued by how he was plugged in to so many different communities in New York: visual arts, music, filmmaking. He ran with a crew who all seemed to believe that whatever they wanted to do, they could do. (Which also reminded me of Patti Smith’s memoir, Kids—is this disjointed enough for you yet?)
Earlier today at work, I was listening to some Ted Talks. This is one of my favorite things to do, to have something inspirational on in the background when I’m writing or editing. You get some pretty amazing cross-pollination that way. I wish I could travel to New York and buy Bill a cup of coffee. But he seems pretty shy and would probably turn me down. I love how he has followed his obsession—fashion, beauty—and has given himself permission to document all the people and things he’s seen. (He calls it record keeping.) He doesn’t do this to get rich and he is not a celebrity whore. One of his favorite people to photograph is an executive assistant. He’s just doing his thing. He focuses on what draws his eye, whatever and whoever that is. And he said something that really resonated with me, along the lines of "If you don't take money, they can't tell you what to do.” All of the people I’ve mentioned in this post have inspired me. Will these people or ideas come through in my work some way? Maybe. Sometimes inspiration is just that—a breath of fresh air. I admire that all three of these people tried/are trying to follow their own paths in making their art. (Another random aside: Sugar’s column is about this same topic this week: “You’re asking me if it’s okay to be you. You want me to give you permission to write your truth with honesty and heart because doing so scares the living crap out of you. I’m here not only to give you permission, but also to say that you must. There is no other way.”) I’ve been thinking a lot about what I do for a living, because I write for work, but I also write other things that I do not get paid for. And I will continue to create those things, regardless of whether or not I ever make money from them. And inspiration for that work comes from all sorts of places, from Sugar, from Bill, from Basquiat, from life. For instance: · Years ago a friend told me about her father, who would go for walks in his neighborhood with a rolled up dishtowel around his head as a sweatband and a pack of smokes rolled into his t-shirt. I didn’t know what I would do with this, but I knew I would use this image somewhere, someday. · I felt conflicted telling my daughter about Santa Claus. No matter how harmless I thought the tradition, no matter how much I actually enjoy the holiday, I just could not get the story out of my mouth. It wouldn’t come. · I saw a guy who looks like Santa Claus here in Austin and someone told me he works at Rockefeller Center during the holiday. All three of these things came together in a short story. You never know where the temporary obsessions and random bits will turn up in your work, but if you give them time and space, they can grow. I have the Santa story out on submission to a few literary journals. I hope it finds a home. Yesterday I saw Santa again, at the grocery store. I’m taking this as a sign that it will.
It's interesting...in many ways I'm now living the life I wanted when I was younger. Two kids, girl and boy. Husband, house, dog. It's good to remember to be grateful when you've been lucky and gotten what you've asked for.
Not my favorite in the series.
A little light on details and gossip. Actually Clementine and this memoir both seemed a bit thin to me, and I'm not referring to the length.
I used to come to Ruta Maya to listen to music. Now I bring the kids. Note that my child is in front of the mic.
Sadly, we lost an old tree to oak wilt. We saved the stump and now it has a second life as a planter.
