The Writing Life

    

Not many people understand what the life of a writer entails. When we are earnestly in pursuit of our profession we spend more hours on our work and/or craft (and more diligently) than most people do at any other job you can name. I’ve lost count of the times people have asked me in person or over the phone, “What are you doing? Where have you been?” Average work days for most people are eight hours a day but for the past 17 years it has not been unusual for me to work at writing for more than 12 hours in a day and no less than 8. Ah! Those were the days! I can tell you that we are not only dedicated, in most instances, but if we could work longer days- if it was physically possible, most of us probably would and certainly not complain about it. Mainly, I am speaking for myself in this case but I’m sure that my fellow bombastic-but-ardent scribes most likely do the same or more. Some of us sleep.

     Once writing becomes a serious part of your life- for whatever reason you

are writing- words take on an importance in the way a surgeon’s tools become integral to his skill as a physician and healer. We scour dictionaries, pore over thesauruses and read obscure sources for the best word in order to give our ideas and theories impetus. We are not just pouring out words, we also devour them like hundreds of pieces of rice and corn at a meal. We must feed on words in order to create them. Our behavior is not unusual given our profession. Our words and ideas must have meat with fat on them! New words flash like neon signs in our minds for hours if they are powerful enough and our ideas are formed by how we feel about certain words. We are full of word prejudice; Arbiters of words, you could say.

     Writers are accused of being daydreamers in early childhood and even into adulthood. Having never experienced this type of criticism from anyone, I have come to understand that it’s quite common. The sentences we write take about 50 to 100 times more forethought per sentence. (You can give and take those numbers and still basically be right about the math. It’s an individual thing for each person.) We certainly come across to people as very quiet so we stare much more than we talk and you can be sure we’ve observed everything in our path, the room, the concert hall or the shopping mall. Observations come with the territory and believe it or not, it’s exhausting. Sometimes it can be tiresome to pay that much attention to certain mundane aspects of life. There are a percentage of us who believe that is what our job actually is- observation and then to paper. Journalists at heart- believe it!

   

  Personally, I was a poet first before I ever wrote anything else. My first book of poetry, Seasons of the Heart, is primarily a collection of my first poems up to the brink of adulthood- before I moved out and away from my parent’s house. Poets are very special writers and any writer will agree with me on that premise. They may expound much further than I because I am a poet and a writer. There are two workers inside of me needing to take that precious time. My poet is hungry these days and needs more sleep and sitting quietly observing everything. But the poet has learned how to swoop down like a heron on a surfacing fish in the water. When those poems come, everything stops and the poet writes and soars through those castles in the air. Castles? I’ll throw one in if I must but for now… 

   

    

The best gift a writer can be given is extra time. Mundane life activities such as housework, cooking meals, general self-care, driving anywhere, shopping and exercise take away time from what we’d rather be doing. We might be the worst workaholics in the world but I once read a quote from a famous feminist writer to this effect: “Writing is the one thing that, when I’m doing it, I don’t feel like I need to be doing something else.” That sentence sums up why we do it. Compulsion comes into play here but with the effect of positivism that other compulsions don’t normally convey. When we go for a walk it’s usually to clear our minds for another eight hours of solitary confinement with a P.C., typewriter or perhaps a notebook if we are having a restless day. 

 

     When you see a writer friend absorbed in internet research, a nose stuck in a book, pounding away on a keyboard or hiding in a corner with a pad and pen, don’t shake your head and stomp your feet. We’re being who we are. Yes, we really love you but we must write. Take us to lunch once in a while and don’t pay any attention when our eyes glaze over. We’re saner than you realize and we just need a little space for that idea fermenting in the brain. 

     In conclusion, here’s a piece of advice to all those who are sadly watching the writer quietly go about his/her work. If you buy them anything, as a gift perhaps, buy them some extra time. “How does someone buy time?” you ask. Of course, you can’t literally buy time but there are many things you can do for them which frees up said time. Be sensitive to what is unnecessarily taking up their precious hours to the point of distraction and there’s the answer. For me, personally, if I could afford a cook and maid I’d hire them now. I like having a decent-looking yard but wish I could just stay at my computer rather than mow or rake the lawn or any of the other numerous outside tasks which seem to be endless. If I had a handyman to fix the 100,000 things that need doing- bliss!

Enough said !

The Castle Lady

March Weirdness

This month may be almost over but everyone in Denver and/or Colorado will probably heave a sigh of relief when it is officially history. Most of last year was dry with few rain or snow storms and this year is proving no different- up until very recently. I made a trip to Home Depot on Tuesday afternoon after a fairly good overnight snow and among the items on my list I decided to once again buy some cement to finish up some work I did two years ago in summer. I had saved my Russian Olive tree early in the morning with a cleverly quick trim on an overhanging branch and I was feeling lucky- just like I should.

     At this point I should remind everybody of my rule of thumb for March: In like a lion, out like a lamb. In like a lamb, out like a lion. In Colorado this can be taken quite literally with almost no exceptions.

     As soon as I got home with new window well covers, et al the forecasts were suddenly imminent. “The weather is changing…the weather is changing…” clucked Chicken Little, the weather forecaster. I looked at the dry-as-a-bone and powdery dirt around the window wells, and what I thought was pourable concrete and laughed my head off and decided to put it off until yesterday. Big mistake.

     When I started out everything had melted off and it was difficult to tell that it had snowed the previous night. The air was chilly but that isn’t unusual for Denver. Our nights are cold in the middle of summer- which, by the way, make summer mornings very pleasant. Ahem!

     I had already prepped the window well for installation and while doing so, found that I was suddenly swimming in mud. Rain! I had put my fashionable galoshes on but decided to hold off on the second one and go in until the rain went away. It did.

     I dried out the spot that I wanted to fill in with pourable concrete. A neighbor helped me pry open the easy open container and discovered that it wasn’t pourable or even concrete putty. It was completely powder with NO ROCKS ! The latter was the good part but the former meant that I had dried out what I could’ve used and quite quickly to finish the job I had started. (It’s just a matter of getting it completely level and completely smooth!)

     The skies started graying up again which may or may not mean rain, especially in Denver. My neighbor said something accidentally ominous. “It’s supposed to rain for days you know.” I laughed and said, “In Denver anything can happen. You know how dry it’s been.” Then we both laughed. I decided to go ahead and try some of the powder with some leftover rainwater to level the area and perhaps later make more to smooth it completely over.

      I patched up all the little potholes and unevenness and went inside to clean up and get to home and hearth. In less than an hour we suddenly had one of our rarest occurrences. Il fait pluie/neige! We’ve had combined snow and rain in Denver before but this was a bona fide sludge storm. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere! Ever. Until yesterday.

     I ran out as fast as I could and covered the area with a plastic wheelbarrow but I don’t know if it prevented anything. It was supposed to set within 30 minutes so I can only hope my patches survived. I’ll let you know, of course. I’m basically recuperating from a fiasco so this could take awhile. March madness is no match for March weirdness! 

The Castle Lady

   

What Would a Lady Do ?

At the end of last week an interesting scenario just popped into my head that made me wonder how many women would have loved to have the following final reply ready in such an embarrassing situation as the one I'm about to impart. Keep in mind that this is a piece of fiction and a bit fractured at that. The kind of words needed to vanquish an often suffered but rarely properly rebuked dragon of male human kind necessitated something the French call le mot juste often done l'esprit d'escalier. My setting is a type of semi-context imitating the set-ups of the wildly popular TV shows What Would You Do?  and Shark Tank  to give the idea a modern focus and yet relayed in the words of ladies, that is, when ladies were really ladies. Thus:

    A woman who had once been of extensive means and titles found herself without real estate and finances and began to inquire in the town where she lived how to obtain the food and shelter she knew she would need to survive. This type of inquiry was unfamiliar to her and as she went the rounds and given quite a few runarounds, she became frustrated and did not understand why these services seemed to be unavailable to her. As a titled woman she understood that anyone in need could obtain necessities but may not have been aware how her situation would appear much better off to the average recipient of such aid. Her clothes spoke of gold but her purse was empty.

     Finally, she stood in the street- baffled and not knowing what to do next- when, what appeared to be a gentleman (albeit a rather bedraggled version of such) stepped up to her and asked her if he could be of any assistance since she appeared to be confused and upset.

     "I need to obtain lodging and sustenance. I have been to all the bureaus which are accustomed to giving aid. I have worked in them as a volunteer. Today they don't know me and tell me I do not qualify and must go somewhere else for assistance. Where can I turn to now ?", she replied.

     "My dear lady, if you don't mind my being so bold may I suggest that a woman of your stature should feel quite uncomfortable to stand amid the throngs, all alone, begging bread? I say this only because I have been a man of position and know how I felt when I myself was reduced to such a predicament. Surely you have something you can sell or a service you can render to put yourself back into a more familiar situation. Am I wrong?"

     "What would I sell ? What service would I render, that I have not already, in serving the public as the public servant that I have been?"

     "I have suggestions. You hold one view of being a public servant about which the rest of the world has no idea or could possibly fill. No one today knows what a lady is or does. Please enlighten me."

      "I can tell you what a lady would never do but I shouldn't have to tell you since you are a gentleman. That is unless you are a wolf in gentleman's clothing."

      "I heard a lady once say that a gentleman is a patient wolf. Is this right?"

      "I would not know that since I am a lady and not a gentleman."

      "The lady I speak of turned out not to be a lady but a woman of ill-repute. A woman of ill-repute ends up selling her body- one way or another."

      "Dear sir, as I'm sure you are a gentleman, I would have you know that I am a true and bonafide lady. I have considered the propositions you have just relayed to me and with all due respect I'm going to have to reject them. I do, however, wish to offer a counter-proposal. I'm prepared to accept $500 for which I'll gladly slap you as hard as I can in the face with the back of my glove. That is my final and adamant offer."

Now that's a lady!

The Castle Lady