reading – Page 10 – Deborah Makarios

July 26, 2013

Existential Angst

As previously mentioned, I don’t like angst. And yet here we are.
On Wednesday I shared my internal debate on whether to use my true and lawful name on this blog, or to stick with my nom de plume.

So far the reaction has been largely “stick with Sinistra”, but it is a complex and many-faceted question, which I would still be greatly mulling over if it hadn’t led me on to an even more complex and many-faceted question.

What precisely am I trying to accomplish with this blog? I know what I said in my first real post, but is that still the case?

Am I here to fight procrastination, and help others do the same? Or am I here to talk about my own struggle with procrastination, and the writing life generally, and books on writing I’ve read and so forth?

I admit until recently I thought I had the procrastination pretty well sorted. I had my routine, I was doing fairly well. Then I went on holiday and got sick (yes, at the same time) and it all turned to custard.

I fell off the procrastination wagon big-time, and am still staggering down the road in its dust in the apparently vain hope that it will stop and let me back on. So yes, there could be some worth in carrying on the chronicle of the procrastinatory battle.

But am I writing for writers or readers? And if readers, readers of what? Besides those of you who are related to me by blood or marriage (dear as you are to me, I suspect you would still be reading if I was blogging about the reproductive habits of newts a la Gussie Fink-Nottle), what brings you here?

What little success I have had as a writer so far has largely been in the area of theatre. I am a scriptwriter. Not that you’d know it from this blog, as I am currently working on a fantasy novel, which is an altogether different kettle of fish. Or apples. (I don’t like calling it ‘fantasy’ for some reason. Perhaps because fantasy sounds a little too wish-fulfilment and not enough this-world-doesn’t-exist-but-would-it-not-be-fun-if-it-did?)

Is there still space on the great wide interwebs for ramblings about writing, reading, and ~~the mating habits of newts~~ the like?
Is anyone encouraged by hearing of someone else’s battle with procrastination, won or lost?
Or am I more style than substance? Would newts do?

Your input welcomed, even if you happened by while doing research into the aerodynamics of custard pies.

Your obedient servant,

Sinistra Inksteyne

June 9, 2013

May: A Sense of Possibility

You cannot dream too big for God, I’ve recently been told.

The fifth chapter in The Artist’s Way is all about daring to dream. And I have most certainly been struggling with this.
There are lists to complete: what would I try if I weren’t too crazy? What would I love to do but aren’t allowed? I wish…

Not surprisingly, the DDJ showed up on a lot of these lists – or rather, the absence of the DDJ, along with reading all day and eating hot Vogels toast with butter. Also a writing room in the shape of a teapot. (I may need to think this one through a little more.)

I had to list twenty wishes, and the further I got the deeper and less specific they became: to be close to God, to live meaningfully, to be loving, to be joyful, to live creatively.

And then I had to list five grievances with God. That felt against the grain, but as she says, God can take it. The DDJ cast a long shadow there, too.

Then there was a great deal of image-collecting – images of what I’d do if I were 20 and rich, 65 and rich, could live other lives. This was quite fun, as I’ve mentioned.

Julia Cameron asks some rather probing questions about self-sabotage. Too often God offers us something and we demur, thinking if it seems too good to be true, it is – or it’s a trap.

“The question is ‘Are you self-destructive?’ Not ‘Do you appear self-destructive?’ And most definitely not ‘Are you nice to other people?'” (p. 99).
This is an important distinction. Not that being a writer (or any other kind of person) is an excuse for being unkind to others, but that others are responsible for their own lives and you are responsible for yours.

Putting other people’s priorities ahead of your own may make you out a really nice person, but it also means that what is important in your own life is neglected.

There is no credit in mowing your neighbour’s lawn if your own is threatening to take over your house.

So, taking responsibility for my own life, I had to list my favourite creative block, my payoff for staying blocked, and the person I blame for being blocked. (Uncomfortable self-scrutinisation, anyone?)

I soon decided my favourite block was tiredness. Then I had to draw a cartoon of myself “indulging in it”. Not being over-endowed with artistic ability, my cartoon was somewhat less elaborate than this:

The payoff was harder to figure out. The payoff for the DDJ is obvious – pay, leading to a roof over my head and food on the table. But what’s the payoff for being tired? Or rather, what’s the payoff for letting tiredness stop me writing?

It isn’t rest, because I find it very hard to rest when I know I should be doing something else. It might be the knowledge that I didn’t fail (because I didn’t try) but it feels like failure anyway.
Perhaps it’s avoiding poor-quality work. Or avoiding that feeling of facing the page and knowing I have nothing to give it. Perhaps it’s just the path of least resistance, inviting pity, framing myself as the victim. (Poor thing. She’s so tired.)

I wasn’t sure who I blamed – could be anyone from me to Capitalism. I don’t know that having someone to blame helps. Well, it might make you feel better (though I doubt it) but it doesn’t help you get out. And out is exactly what I want to get.

I still don’t know what lies before me. Rationally speaking, there is no more cause for hope than there was a month ago, or a month before that. And yet, the flame of hope is kindled in me again. A tiny little wavering blob on the wick of my soul, but there it is.

Don’t nobody breathe.

May 2, 2013

April: A Sense of Integrity

Not that I was enormously lacking in integrity before April – used car salesman I am not.

This is more about recovering a true you-ness, something like what I mentioned in this post.

Synchronicitously, (is that a word? it is now) I keep encountering these two quotes from e.e. cummings of late:

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”

This is in some measure related to the Christian teaching that your truest self – the one God sees when he looks at you – is who he created you to be, not who you have so far made of yourself.
This chapter, then, is about the recovery or even discovery of that truest self – not all in a rush, but slowly, peeling back the layers of damage, time and grime until the masterpiece beneath is revealed.

So, other than the Reading Deprivation, of which I fancy you have heard enough to last you a lifetime (it’s certainly going to last me) what did this chapter involve?

The first task was to imagine your ideal environment. Booooks… Then you were to find an image (or make one, if, unlike me, you have more artistic ability than a meerkat on bad acid) and put this in your writing area. Ditto for your favourite season.

So, my little writing nook (the product of an unofficial Artist’s Date with furniture-moving) is now embellished with a cosy hobbit kitchen and an autumnal canyon-scape.

Also a picture of my Censor, which I keep on the floor – got to keep that voice in its place!

Then I had to go back and forth in time. “Describe yourself at eighty.” Frankly, I have no idea where my life is going and I doubt it’ll go that far, but if I do make eighty I bet I’ll be one of those acute old ladies who says what she thinks you need to hear and doesn’t mind how excruciatingly embarrassed you are by it.

And then memories of being eight. Not much came to mind, and I was a little hazy as to the actual year (I might have been seven) but I remember having purple and green dragon slippers with pink mohawks, and wearing jammies the colour of lemon meringue pie.

And speaking of pie, there was another look at the life pie – as munted as ever, and definitely needing work in the area of work.
As Task 9 asked, “Look at one situation in your life that you feel you should change but haven’t yet. What is the payoff for you in staying stuck?”
Well, in this case, the payoff is pay. Man does not live on bread alone, but it certainly helps.

My Extended Artist’s Date plan (Task 7) starts with a morning going the rounds of the second hand clothing shops, moves on to a leisurely lunch followed by a walk on the beach and winds up curled on the couch with a hot chocolate and a classic movie.

(Poll: would you say that “Plan a small vacation for yourself… Get ready to execute it” means
a) plan it and then do it
b) plan it, and then await instructions to carry it out
c) plan it, and then prepare to shoot it at dawn?)

I also wrote an Artist’s Prayer (Task 6) which I shall likely soon share – and hopefully start remembering to use.