I'm not writing much these days. Well, I'm blogging, but I really don't consider blogging as *writing*. It's more like a stream of consciousness thing where I can talk and express myself, chipping away at the boulder in front of me. There is this story that my mind to comfort me during this time...it goes something like this....A man was told by God to push on a rock, and as an obedient servant of his Lord he got up each morning and began to push on the boulder with no success in moving it. Undeterred he did this every day for years. Years turned into decades and finally after the man had filled out, his arms and back rippled with muscles and his legs we like unmovable tree-trunks. In frustration he knelt down and prayed "Why? Why have you asked me to do this impossible task. I can't move this rock." The Lord, answered his obedient servant in loving dulcet tones. "Dear child, I told you to push on the rock, not to move it. Look at yourself. You are strong and you are determined. Now you are ready for that which I have prepared for you to do."
Only I know that this writers block isn't a huge trial before me and I'm tired of blogging in hopes to chip away at the mass to either find a vein of weakness and destroy it or chip away at it to be able to pass it. However, my favorite chisel and hammer are gone - Money. I don't *need* money to write, in fact, that's one of the things that I truly love about it, I can write with out any electricity at all. But the ability to buy research materials, to go to restaurants that provide the food that I'm writing about or just to do something that broadens the senses and quickens the mind is what money provides at a time like this.
106 Days and counting.....I think this is the stress that the block is made of. I'm worried that the fiction isn't strong enough to be believable, that the spell I wove with the words isn't strong enough to bind the reader to the page. Which stress bleeds over to the present project...what if I'm not making a cohesive tapestry and it's just a farce that I'm acting out to my own humiliation. I'm going to try and lull myself into a safe state of denial and try to believe that it takes publishers 150 days to read a manuscript and then, after that day, I can start to worry. That puts my fretting off until December 21, 2006. I think, no matter what my finances are, I should have a celebration. That is if I haven't heard back yet.
1 comment:
A wise man once said " We read to know we are not alone". Another wise man repeated it: C.S. (Jack) Lewis. I believe it to be true. If you know the purpose of people wanting to read, it gives you a leg up on what and how to write. We need to identify with our audience, and let them identify with us. A measure of transperancy will go a long way to accomplishing this task.
We Blog in hope that we're not alone;
Commments prove we're not!
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