I started a writing course this month. A gift long promised to myself, I approached it with both excitement and apprehension; excited to learn and grow, apprehensive because it is new – a little scary. As a writer, my joy in creating is surpassed only by a frustrating lack of motivation to do so. My hope is that this program, while improving my ability, will also keep me accountable and motivated to actually write. Intrinsic motivation simply does not cut the mustard, so to speak, for me. I work best with imposed schedules, deadlines, specific requirements.
Already, it is providing the stimulus I need to start scrawling across paper.
Yes, I am one of a widening minority, I suppose, who still writes with ink upon paper. I am a relic of pre-tech times. Granted, I realize that I double, perhaps even triple, the required effort to produce a tangible piece of work in so doing. Many sit happily before their screen, and tap merrily away, inspiration streaming directly into software that edits, files, posts and sends. For me, however, words flow only through the tip of my pen (Sharpie Roller 05, Blue). As my words scratch out onto paper, an avalanche begins in my frontal lobe, one word begets another word, snowflake upon snowflake, until a mammoth rush. Pen flies, scurrying to keep time with the momentum that’s built in my head.
If I sit before a computer screen however, all thought solidifies. No flow. Like plucking stones from a frozen stream.
My usual writing nook looks something like this: I sit in my lilliputian armchair, produced during a time when women were seemingly shorter, footstool stretched before me and lap desk balanced precariously upon, well, upon my lap. I say precarious because on said lap, there is often also the softest, dilute calico. She is of the opinion that she is my muse, I believe, for she perches here often. Tea sits to my right within easy grasp. From this cranny, I initially write. Long hand. In cursive.
Arrows soar up and down my pages. Sections are crossed out. Grocery lists grace corners and to-do lists fall down the margins. It is paramount to a mass evacuation from my brain – if there is a pen in my hand, it is a free-for-all. A direct line from psyche to paper. Once that purge is complete, and only then, can I begin to transpose from my notebook to the screen. Then, I will edit, play. I will also print, to again score with ink, marking up my copy and adding ideas. These too, will eventually find their way back to the screen. An arduous process, but one that works for me.
It goes without saying then, that one so accustomed to paper, is probably not real proficient with technology.
So it was that this past weekend, I sat at my laptop to type my first writing assignment for my course. Over a period of three hours, I typed, deleted, cut and pasted, and rewrote. Gradually I molded together a structure that I was proud of. At 7:30, I hit save and pushed down my screen. Done. Seconds later, hit by another bout of inspiration, I returned to my document to quickly type it in.
Dismay. The document that returned from the ether was from three hours before. Unedited. Uncut. Unpasted. Holy ____. (Feel free to fill in this blank. Be creative.)
A failure to save. Why? Without boring you, a glitch between sign-ins of some sort had occurred.
I spent the next hour throwing everything that I could remember back into that laptop. In no particular order, with no rhyme or reason. Just a mad, chaotic attempt to mine my memory before all was lost to the menopausal fog that my retention has become.
Then I drank wine. Because.
The next morning dawned and I returned to my task. Rejuvenated and with a better outlook. I do believe that it is best to look for silver linings in this life, of what good are “the poor me’s”? My attitude that morning was that the universe felt a new start was required. And had therefore made it happen.
Wouldn’t you know it, the universe was exactly right. I began anew with increased imagination, and realized that what had prior been sluggish writing, now felt more natural and less forced. The end result was a work that I felt real good about.
In hindsight, I became so preoccupied with doing a good job for my class, that I looked too closely, saw the details but not the wider picture, the entire scope of what I’d created.
I had needed to step back and to look at the larger image.
My computer glitch forced me into a rewrite that was needed. The universe had my back. As always.
This experience got me to thinking about other places where I may need a rewrite. Where else was I peering too closely, losing the greater essence? Too often I become consumed by the details, the threads in the fabric, and I lose sight of the wider tapestry.
When I become so overwhelmingly concerned with the health of my epileptic basset, Cecil, that I forget to enjoy the goofball that he is.
When I clean and tidy my home, but I forget to dance in it, absorbing the loveliness and privilege that it is.
When my husband annoys me in the moment and I forget that he is an incredible human who smells divine.
My faulty save is a reminder to see the trees, but to remember the forest. Details matter, but the whole picture?
That’s where I live.