How does anybody decide what to write? I'm stuck, not because I have writer's block but because there is too much in my head. OK, I'll concede that I may not know how to write any of it in a way that anyone would want to read, but that's a different issue. I was going to write about the dream I had a few nights ago about my dad and Anna and the earthquake, and how I woke up with the absolute (but not very original) understanding that all of us are on our own, all of us have to fix our own problems, or at least, if we don't, nobody else is going to do it for us. Then I got bogged down in the detail of how to write it: a straightforward telling? as a fictional story? whether or not to make it clear to the reader that it was a dream? After a couple of days the vividness of the dream was fading, and since then I've had lots of other dreams which have become mixed up with it. I've also been reading a lot of Alice Munro short stories and every one of them hits a nerve, has something which is completely familiar yet completely devastating in its emotional impact, so that at the end of every story I find myself lost in my own memories. But I never manage to pin any of them down long enough to feel the coherent story, and they start to merge with the dreams.
This stuckness pervades my whole existence, it's not just a problem with writing. Every day I struggle with an overwhelming number of choices; whether to go into work (I'm only part-time, and can work from home just as easily), what to have for breakfast (toast or cereal, how can it take half-an-hour to decide?), what to wear (from the large assortment of similarly dull and shapeless items strewn about the house), whether to take a coat/hat/gloves/waterproof if I do go out (I can't stand being too hot but the weather can be unpredictable so I always check the Met Office page before I go anywhere), whether to phone Anna/Tom/PAJ/my mum, whether I need to go shopping/put in a load of washing/change the sheets (dusting/vacuuming is never on this list). And so it goes on. A trip to the supermarket can be disastrous. I've been known to abandon the trolley or basket in the middle of an aisle and leave, with nothing. I even once tipped a basket over in desperation, emptying the contents into the fruit display because they hadn't got some item which I'd decided I needed for dinner. Having made the first decision, it was impossible to make another one, so I just had to go. I think we probably had take-away that night. A few years ago, when I was in a particularly bad stuck phase, I did some writing at the suggestion of a counsellor I was seeing - it took me days to decide whether to write on my laptop or on paper, and then whether to use pen or pencil. The first thing I wrote about was that indecision, getting more and more stuck in pages of self-referential scrawl.
Given my inability to make even the simplest decision, and the panic I experience when faced with choices of any sort, how am I supposed to decide what to do with my life once my current job ends in November? The way science and university funding has been/is still being drastically cut, there is absolutely no chance of me getting a paid job in research or academia. I'm not being modest here, just completely realistic. If we decide that we can live on PAJ's salary, I could carry on doing the work I'm doing now, unpaid - the department would be quite happy to let me keep my desk and computer account. Do I want to? If I don't need to earn, I could go and do anything at all. But given the whole world, and an infinity of possibilities, what would I choose? And if I do need to earn money (and to decide that, I need to decide how long I'm going to support the kids), there are still choices. Do I go back to music teaching (which I vowed I'd never do again, but that was part of the old me and my implicit assumptions)? Or try teaching science? Or try and combine science with writing (I'm told there are jobs in editing science journals, for instance)? Or go and learn something entirely different? Or get a job on the tills at Tesco (I've done worse)?
And so I go round and round, crippled by indecision.
Where will it all end?
I think it impossible to describe inner states. To tell a story, even a personal one you need a narrative form that follows cultural conventions for story telling.
ReplyDeleteA beginning, a goal, a time line of perils and pitfalls, successes and regressions.
Otherwise you face an impossible task.
My dear old Dad used to be great at giving advice for when you were emotionally stuck. He would say "get an agenda" and approach it one moment at a time.
There are no right or wrong decisions. But you can let go of the idea that there is any chance of controlling outcomes. Like a hot air balloon journey. You can set off, but you have no idea where you will land.
Hope that is helpful. Love Fiona xx
Yes, absolutely. Thankyou. It's funny though, I can give advice like that to the kids (especially the one about there being no right or wrong decisions) but find it immensely difficult to know how to apply it to myself. I love the hot air balloon analogy, it pretty well sums up my whole life. I'd like to think that I've at least had control over the starting points, but in reality I know they've been pretty random too. I guess my desire to be able to write a coherent story is really a desire to feel that I have some control (or at least the illusion of control) over my life. Dream on...
ReplyDeleteAll I can tell you is what I do - and that may be totally inappropriate for you, because one thing I have observed about you and me is that we are very different (which is what makes our friendship so interesting for both of us).
ReplyDeleteIf I have an idea, I just get on the computer and write. I don't worry about form, I just let it flow. If it turns out to be something I like, I either leave it alone (yes, sometimes it does just come out right) or I work on it for hours, honing it.
I am like you in the sense that if I have an idea and I don't do something about it quickly, I get caught up with other thoughts, things, stuff. I find it is the same with work. If I have an idea I need to, at the very least, 'download' pretty quickly. I guess I am lucky in that I can download to a team of people and get them to start working on fleshing it out.
In relation to the work situation, you are in a great position. You have until almost the end of the year to find an alternative. That gives you a couple of months to decide what you want to do (look at this as an opportunity, not a problem - this job hasn't been a bed of roses) and then you have several months to make it happen.
It's easy for me to say..........I don't have life-changing decisions to make (after the divorce, job changes, new home, etc I guess it's a good thing I have a bit of stability at last).
At least you're writing about what you're not writing - that's a start in my book. I bet there's a few Arvon alumni that haven't written a word since the course.
B