Sextant
I've been up since 3:00 a.m. in a world of Crohn's pain, and on nights (mornings?) like this, I find I need to focus on something else. This morning it was the silence of a house full of sleeping children. It's not the silence of gloom, but the silence of solace, the silence of happiness, because a full house to me is a happy one. It makes me enjoy the silence more.
Much of my life has been about fixing my gaze on something else so that I can basically just live and not focus on pain, and I started thinking about a sextant. I live with a Navy veteran. I am directionally challenged. I notice that no matter where we are, he finds the horizon. Because of this, he can always tell whether we are traveling east or west, or north or south--or southwest for that matter. Me? I'm a New Yorker with NO sense of direction beyond, when I am in Manhattan, having some vague sense of where the Hudson River is. Tell me to go left or right. Leave N-S-E-W out of it. Or better yet, get me a talking GPS.
But sailors used to use the sextant. The way a sextant works . . . one mirror fixes on a celestial object. Then using another mirror, the object is superimposed on the horizon and an angle is measured (simplified version of how this works). For me, I often am fixing my gaze elsewhere, some thought that I can hold onto when I do not feel well. But I think it's also the writer's way. We constantly have some goal, a celestial object on a horizon. We can lose our way, but then we re-locate the object again. We recalculate our sight, and sail toward it-- whether that's writing "the end," or landing an agent, or seeing our name on a book cover.
For me, the idea of a sextant is a reminder to not get mired in the pain. Or to not get mired in the day-to-day stuff that causes me to drift from writing or drift from what is important to me. It's really, REALLY easy to lose your way. Just ask me--the woman who couldn't even tell you where the sun rises from--oh, yeah. East. But I can't point to east from where I am right now.
So how about you? What causes you to lose your writing way? How do you get back on track again? What is your celestial object?
30 comments:
Sorry about the pain Erica!
For me I tend to be governerned by Dawn and Dusk. Most of my work begins around midnight when my 'Hunny Bunnies' are sleeping and the house is still. It's also kind of reasuring because I know I'm not stealing time from my hubby and kids.
The problem is that often what I write at 3 in the morning seems so deep and unique..but in the cold light of day I wonder who wrote that trash on my computer screen last night...
So, I sometimes loose my way when I
try to compose things ONLY late at night. My hubby, who is doing his doctorate, advised me to make the plans and outlines during the day and then at night to put in the shades and dimensions. I'm a night owl so my creative juices flow more at this time.
Are you up with the lark or a night owl? I suppose that I could be both as often I work til 6 - 7 in the morning.
I'll send you a couple of recipes sometime during the week via email Erica! THANKS for the question.
Hi Ann Marie:
I am a lark. By unfortunate necessity, I am also a night owl. I have chronic insomnia and right now I am in a spot of severe pain, but hopefully it won't last that long. Ideally, I would rise about 6:30 . . . but Oldest Son commutes over an hour+ each way to school, so I rise at 5:30--that hour messing with my natural sleep cycle both drives me nuts--and gives me an extra hour of peace and quiet to write each day.
Interesting, but you know, I am the SAME about the cold light of day and what I write at night!
E
Yikes. I hope you feel better, Erica.
For me, the biggest challenge is my attention span. I mean, I can sit there in front of my document with willpower, but if my brain is too scattered to form complete sentences, then the only thing I can produce is bits and pieces to fill in later. I can never get the full-sentence and bits-n-pieces cycle to match my deadlines and goals, which frustrates the freaking heck out of me. I don't really find my way: I just beat myself up and get mad and yell at myself and try caffeine and fish oil and everything, but it all makes no difference. The full-sentence days come on their own freakin' time schedule.
Natasha:
I have to battle that with mini-goals for focusing. That's hard for me, too.
Sorry to hear that you're feeling badly. You're a strong woman to do what you do while in pain. You've obviously created some good strategies for yourself to help deal with it.
For me, the challenge in focusing on writing is competing priorities. i.e. Should I look for work today or finish this chapter? When I sit to write, I am usually good at getting the job done. Interruptions don't disturb me whether it's one of my kids asking for something or the phone ringing. I used to need total silence but now, as long as it's not something on television, which I find too magnetic, I'm all right. I do a lot of writing at coffee shops so I am away from Internet access (because I don't get the password from the smaller shops or connect at the larger ones. Now, why can't I just avoid email, etc. at home?)
Hope this phase of pain and insomnia leaves you soon. I'm sending good thoughts your way.
Colleen:
I haven't blogged in a while on the topic of distractions--but in the past I have blogged about how I used to think I "needed" ...silence, candles, music, this and that. Then I had Demon Baby and found I could write through almost anything. I just don't have the luxury of waiting for the right writing conditions.
Oldest Daughter keeps telling me I should go write at Starbucks. I keep thinking about it. I might write more there, though the one by me has such limited space, maybe not.
I'm sorry you are going through another round of pain and sleeplessness. I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers and hope this is a short flare up.
On my office wall I have a Lakota Sioux wheel of life (a ring of willow crossed by two arrows intersecting at the center). I can see it from my desk and most days when I sit down to plan my day, write, etc., I look long and hard at it. It reminds me to stay centered and balanced in my life. When I've lost my way in writing, it's usually because I've gotten something in my life out of balance, out of round, lost my center focus.
The wheel of life reminds me to go back to the core of who I am and allow all that I do to flow from that place. It serves as my celestial object, my sextant.
Beth;
A very cool sextant at that!
Sometimes the distractions are what makes the journey worth the while.
I use goals to keep myself focused and often have to remind myself I made those goals. I told my daughter yesterday there is talent and there is determination. It is extremely rare when both are combined in one person which is why they're called a genius or prodigy. Me? All I've got is determination but you can succeed with that if you stay focused on your goal.
I'm reading Dean's book now and it's incredible the pain these women went through to achieve their goal, equality for women.
I grew up on a farm. Each bedroom window faced east and west, so my childhood was filled with sunrise and sunset watching. (Cool childhood, huh?)
My recent blog post (as you know, and thanks for the uplifting comment you left) was about my Muse's ADHD. It is easily distracted. :) Therefore, I haven't written in any WIP's in a long time, but have managed to re-write some poetry and submit to a journal, so I guess I'm not a total loss.
BUT, the reason for my lack of writing is that I've been nursing an ill dog, and with that came a ton of worry. It devoured all creativity and energy, which the latter I spent on my dog (that and a few thousand bucks).
My sextant has come in the form of reading blogs like yours. It helps me pinpoint lurking reasons behind my stalled writing, which returns my focus.
And here's hoping all your pain recedes. I'm sending up a prayer for you today. ((HUG))
Richmond:
I don't know how much of determination I have, how much of talent. I have spunk. I guess that counts for something. ;-) Spunk and grit.
Kath:
Big hugs back!!!
xoxoxoxox
E
I think you know me well enough to know I get knocked off course all the time, primarily by business aspects of publishing, rather than any creative problems or technical problems. That is to say--yup, metaphor time--that concerns about a project's marketability can feel like crosswinds or crosscurrents and I really have to focus on the work itself and what it means to me--that's my true north--and not get caught up in other people's considerations.
Hope you're feeling better.
I too am directionally challenged.
And that applies to my writing. The toughest writing challenge I face is to make the story fit together and yet to still keep it alive. I can work so hard for order that I squeeze the life out of my characters.
This is still something I struggle with after having written a bunch of books.
I am lost. I have been for months. Writing is usually my salvation, my escape, but now I struggle with every word. I'm pulling up the old books I've written in an effort to spark something.
I think I need to set some new goals. Having a goal usually gets me moving.
Hope you feel better soon. Sending healing thoughts your way.
I feel I'm wandering off track right now, trying to structure my Bishop. (She's going to kill me. This book will be the death of me. I actually dreamed a writer I know DIED last night.)
Here we have the mountains, so there's always a big landmark to use. I never lose my way here. And in Chicago the lake is always east...
None of that helps me find my path in writing this week though.
I feel like I'm back on track after losing my way for a couple of years. Working with a strong editor certainly helps!
Hope you feel better soon!
Hope the pain goes away soon.
I hope you can whack the Crohn's disease back into semi-remission. My sympathies on the pain.
Procrastination and tiredness get me off-track. If I can just get started, then I will keep going. If I can just find time to write in the morning, I won't find myself trying (and failing) to write in the evening.
Mark:
I can get knocked off course for the same reasons. And generally my "real life" tends to be pretty stressful.
Joe:
I can get waylaid in the middle--totally get lost.
Aimless:
Goals are good, though I seem to blow them off. Passion motivates me--getting good and excited by a book.
Starbucks:
I am the worst when it comes to directions. I live off a pretty major road. I've lived her for 4 years. I STILL don't know if the road goes east to west or north to south. I have to say, "Head AWAY from Richmond" or "Head TOWARD Amelia." Where there is, NSEW, I don't know. I think I am lost without the ocean in South Florida. Though even there I'd get lost all the time. My GPS is the BEST GIFT I've ever gotten.
Thanks, Jude . . . thanks FF. I go next week to let them draw my blood in vial upon vial to see what's up with all my levels. Hopefully, I'll get back on track.
jj:
TIREDNESS is my nemesis right now.
See my desk homage to you at mylifeontwolegs.blogspot.com
Hope you feel better soon!
Daily distractions cause me to lose my focus, but what gets me back on track is fear actually. Fear of returning to work in an office.
As I mentioned previously, the work politics were so bad in my last job that I'm petrified to return to another office environment. Although it's highly likely that may happen later this year, I'm doing my best to keep on the writing track.
Feel better!!
Nadine:
I hope you can keep out of an office! :-)
E
Ouch. I'm so sorry about your pain. But this is a wonderful posting, Erica. Gave me a lot to think about.
Rick:
Thanks!
Post a Comment