There Are No Nutshells Here, Only Nuts

One pair of pyjama shorts, one pair of work out pants which have become every day pants, one skirt/shorts combo, thousands of words, 30 hours of paid work, 40 hours of crazy night writing, morning writing, three aprons for a friend, one failed shirt that is so lame I want to spit on it, which I might, 100 beers, 3 days at the gym, three day of no alcohol, three vases of cut flowers from the garden, several avocados, two meetings (one school, one psyche), then another meeting with lots of signing but not for love or fun, a thousand mysterious flies, a dozen eggs, several sessions of shouting at the universe for answers god dammit!, questioning entire self and life and direction, one huge windstorm, three new feet of growth on the lawn and the resulting hidden dog bombs, realization that I might have to choose between trip to California or a new psyche evaluation for self with new meds, some surprising crap dredged up, compost that got super scary 'cause I forgot about it, (and I'll spare you the alarming details), and one continually avoided phone call.  Not to you, obviously.

That is the last week in a big mound of toothsome words.  It has been absolutely manic around here.  I don't have bipolar disorder, thankfully, but there has been so much to do and suddenly, risen up from a mere little professional exercise, I find I am writing a book.  A book that will probably never get published.  So I have to ask myself: if it probably will never get published, shouldn't I save myself a whole lot of frantic intense work and just move on?  Then I have to ask myself where I would have been if JD Salinger had just ditched his writing because it might not get published?  The thing is, writers don't write only when they're sure of being published.  Writers write because they have something that needs to be written.  The writing pushes the writer, not the other way around.  I have to write what I'm writing because it needs to be inked, and I need to make it as excellent as I can, as though others were going to read it so that it will be worthy of the time. 

I don't know if that makes sense.  I have never in my writing life gotten to this point before.  I have never felt this intense drive to tell a story that takes on a life of its own, borrowing me and my body and my brain to manifest itself.  I'm totally tired and still excited at the same time.  I am emotional and raw.  I am insecure.

Yeah, I know, MORE THAN USUAL.  Because this feels so important and I'm worried that I'm not going to be up to it.  That I'll finish and it will still be crap after thousands of hours. 

Meanwhile, I still have to do the other things I do, like housework, mothering, and writing for two blogs, and working as a headline editor almost full time, and visiting my garden once in a while.  In case you were wondering?  Everything else suffers for my "art", which is why it sure as hell better be good shit.  No one can have it all. That is a HUGE lie that feminism spread.  Is still spreading.  No, you can't do everything.  You can't have everything.  Something will always suffer: your housework, your child, your marriage, your friends, your sanity.  Whatever.  Sadly it's our humans that usually suffer the most since our houses don't really care that much if you don't dust them for a while.

I have more.  I have posts for Stitch and Boots, and I have more for here but right now I'm playing catchup with my broom.  Trying to give my boys a little love by cleaning the sheets and vacuuming up the copious drifts of pet fur.

All I can say is that if I finish this "book"* of mine and it turns out to be a lousy piece of shit- it will have drained my life-blood for nothing.  Writing a book is way harder than giving birth to a human being.




*It's not in quotations cause it isn't really a book.  It's in quotations because this wasn't supposed to happen.  I consciously decided not to be book writer a long time ago.  I consciously decided to write articles and creative non-fiction.  Essays.  Not books.  Because I am not worthy of such an endeavor.  I feel sheepish and what if I never finish it?  "Book" writing is so loaded.  I know people crank them out all the time, but good books, books that still make their way to permanent bookshelves a hundred years later?  My heroes write books.  I just write.  See, I told you. Flooded with fresh torturous insecurity.  I wish someone would tell me if this is what I'm supposed to be doing.  For real.  Seriously.  I don't want obscure "messages" to come at me, the kind of thing that might actually mean anything.  I want someone to say "Angelina, you were born to do this thing.  So you're doing exactly what you're supposed to."

So if there is a God, now would be a good time to use that supposedly rad voice of yours.  But, whatevs, I know you liked Tammy Faye way better than you've ever liked me. 

Shit.  I'm totally losing it.