I'm on day 2 of being sick, after spending a day with a sick O, and I am fighting terrible feelings of self-doubt and lurking failure. This is a normal way to be when sick, I suppose, but it comes at a time when I was already struggling against despair. Why despair? Because I am genetically predisposed? Because I am working too much and I'm worn out? Hormones? Yes. Yes. Probably. Because the BiP is more a fantasy than a reality at this point? (For those keeping track, NaNoWriMo feels to me more like NoNeGoWriMo ~ Not Never Gonna Write More.) The last is probably the clincher. Whenever I lose track of my writing I get desperate. This is an ongoing dance I do with myself. Commit to the writing ~ do the writing ~ neglect the writing ~ hear the writing whispering recriminations ~ avoid the writing ~ loathe self and others ~ eventually get back to the writing (repeat). Wouldn't it be nice if we could lose steps 3, 4, & 5? Hope in a Prison of Despair , pre-raphaelite painting...
David made fun of me when I told him, two weeks ago, that I had "started writing the first post" for this blog. "You don't get it, do you?" he asked, knowing perfectly well that I do. I probably threatened to throw something at him. I erased that fragment of first post. It was too mannered and laborious. It was all about what I want this blog to be about. It was all about my anxiety of influence re certain other writers (namely George Eliot), and about the wonder of coming upon a manuscript of Middlemarch in the British Library about 5 million years ago, and the little paperback reproduction of her quotation-filled blotter I bought in the gift shop. The paperback looks like this. (I haven't actually read it.) Miraculously, I was able to find it in less than 5 minutes, despite the shocking disarray of my bookshelves ... it was on the attic stairs. ( more on bookshelves in some other post ) In the intervening two weeks, I have made a list of possible topics fo...
Anita Loos photographed by Edward Steichen presence of photo explained below, as though a picture like this requires an explanation. This exercise in blarg-- blerg-- uh, blogging is enjoyable, but I think I have been breaking my 20-minute rule rather regularly. So, the challenge now is to keep it under 20. And, somehow, it took me 2 minutes to write that first sentence. No wonder it is taking me so long to write the tome of tomorrow ... that's my official new name for it. Tome of Tomorrow, or ToT for short. No more of this BiP or E(ndless)BiP or what have you. Reading: Continuing on with the Lurie. Looking forward to beginning something new tomorrow. Also, the writing letters chapter from Bird by Bird Writing: Muchly, at the hospitable Donkey. Dinner: O and I made a nice succotash with shallots and a splash of half and half to perk up the frozen limas and corn. My mom made a second night of Yorkshire pudding, because she could. If you have bothered to render suet, you might as wel...
If you know me, you should be able to detect at least a little humor here, I hope.
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