In the long run,
we shape our lives,
and we shape ourselves.
The process never ends
until we die.
And the choices we make
are ultimately
our own responsibility.
~~Eleanor Roosevelt
Twenty-five pages from my memoir manuscript, You’ll Never Find Us, are taped up all over my office, awaiting the magic pen of creativity to fix them.
These are the 25 pages—chapters 13-15 to be exact—recently submitted to and shredded by my critique group… and rightly so. My five critique “sisters” believe in me and want me to write the best book possible. I’d tell you they have my back but that is a cliché and they’d edit it right off the page.
Lynn Goodwin, a writer acquaintance through Story Circle Network, said, “Shredded manuscripts give you confetti. Use it to celebrate every new victory as you rewrite.”
I could use a little victory about now. When I made up my mind almost two months ago to (finally) focus on my manuscript and my health, I thought I knew what it would be like and I convinced myself I was up to the task. I cleared my calendar by:
– resigning from a number of committees and a favored board,
– agreeing to not facilitate any retreats for the rest of the year, and
– filtering any meeting requests by asking the question – does this further my book and/or my health?
I made a commitment to myself (what a concept) to complete the manuscript by December 2015. https://www.jeanneguy.com/take-it-or-leave-it/
And then I sat down in front of my computer and thought, holy cow, what have I done? I just announced my intention to the world, and now I have to do it.
Guess what? The writing life is hard. As author Dani Shapiro said in her recent blog “On What it Takes”, “It’s solitary, often thankless, painful to the point of near-madness. It can look, from a distance, especially on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, like the writing life involves days bracketed by beautiful cups of cappuccino in the morning, perfect glasses of Priorat at night.”
She goes on to say, “But the truth is a wee bit darker. The truth is that writers, if I may generalize, are sensitive, impatient, fearful people, sifting through the sands of the everyday, panning for gold. We never know what’s next. The next book, the next sentence, the next word all reveal themselves to us in their own time, with their own peculiar alchemy.”
For me there has been a slow reveal. I started writing it in December of 2005; picture 345 pages of a draft residing on a large back burner on my stove over the years. In my defense, writing the story of how my children were stolen from me and how I stole them back has not been a joyride.
But now, since March 1, I write daily, as in every day – including Saturday and Sunday. It may only be for 15 minutes, sometimes hours on end, but the book and I have agreed to show up for a daily date and see what happens. Writing continuously makes me see through different eyes; my perceptions all connect to the book—I see words, have feelings, which move the book along. I am continually processing the plot, catching errors, solving mysteries, putting things together. And that is exhilarating.
I have become persistent, even though the end result on any given day may not be great…ask my critique group. I may spend some of my time fearful, scared, irritable, impatient, ready to give up, and yes, crying, because, (did I mention?) writing is hard.
Some days I’d much rather just quit.
But the truth is I am a writer. And writers write. It’s how I shape my life. As Mark Nepo says in The Book of Awakening, “The way is hard, but clear…where we sense the rush of truth is where we must give our all.”
If you have a better answer, write to me. Bring it on!
