Becca Rowan is a writer and the author of Life in General, a collection of essays about mid-life as experienced by an American woman in the 21st century. Becca loves creating connections by sharing stories on her popular blog.
I know it’s Monday.
But grab your pencil and notebook anyway - there’s still time to join Jeff Goins free blog series, Mastering the Habits of Great Writers. The series starts tomorrow and will feature one habit of great writers every day, along with a daily challenge to help us become great writers too.
I’ll be participating with posts here at Write on Wednesday.
Hope you’ll join in.
Nothing about the weekend went quite as planned. Instead of church on Sunday morning, I ended up in the Veterinary Urgent Care with Magic, who was poorly all week long, despite a visit to our regular vet on Thursday. If you know me, you know my dogs are like my children (just more furry) and if they’re sick the rest of the world has to wait.
Magic is almost 10 years old, so when a dog reaches that stage of life, illnesses can be serious, even fatal. As I said tearfully to my mother yesterday morning when he seemed so ill, “I cannot lose one of my dogs right now. I simply cannot bear that."
I practically wore out a set of Dell laptop batteries searching through veterinary websites. I slept badly, knowing we would be going back to our regular vet today, knew we would be doing X-rays, perhaps other diagnostic tests. NOT knowing what we would find.
But preparing myself for the worst.
That is SO typical of me, expecting the worst in every outcome. When I woke up this morning, I practically had my little dog dead and buried.
I can write this now because it turns out there is nothing seriously wrong - a slight case of bronchitis, and a really bad case of “angry, inflamed gas” (in the words of my vet, the inimitable Dr. Kimberly Anderson). He now has medication for both and already seems much calmer and more comfortable.
Of course, somewhere in the back of my mind the qualifying words “this time” rise up to taunt me. He is almost 10 years old. We’ll be lucky to have him five more years.
And we all know how fast years fly.
But I’m desperately trying to pull myself back from that abyss tonight, and focus on the week ahead. We’re traveling on Wednesday to see The Magnificient Mister Connor, whom I hear has two teeth, loves to eat things that are yellow (as in bananas, butternut squash, and mangos), and pants like a dog when he gets excited.
Now I can hardly wait to see all that - and more.
Stay tuned, because next weekend will definitely be worth writing about.
How was your weekend? I hope it was a little bit less stressful than mine.
Last night was a porch sitting kind of night. It was just cool enough to be comfortable on my west-facing back porch, so I could sit and let the sun wash over me on its way to bed. I spent about 20 minutes there, with one of my dogs shade-bathing in the cool green grass underneath my feet. He and I were both content to “set a spell,” which is unusual because we are the restless ones in the family.
I wasn’t reading or writing or talking on the phone.
I wasn’t Facebooking or Tweeting.
More importantly, I wasn’t contemplating doing any of those things.
While I rarely allow myself the luxury of letting my mind wander, it’s even more rare that I sit and focus my attention on one thing - a writing idea, or a plan of action for my life, or even the menu for next week’s meals.
Recently, I’ve come to the realization that my writing - in fact, much of my life - suffers from my inability or unwillingness to think.
I’m talking about the kind of deep thoughtfulness when you focus your intellectual energy on one topic and one topic only, whether it’s the points you want to convey in an essay, the type of life you want to live when you retire, or whether to buy kitchen spice racks for the counter or wall spice racks or even whether to buy a spice rack at all.
Just as my body flits from one activity to the next, so do my thoughts, never seeming able to stay still but whizzing across the landscape of my mind like wispy cirrus clouds on a summer afternoon. I want to slow them down, fluff them up with content until they lie heavy and firm on my brain.
How do I make that happen?
This summer, I’m going to commit to more thoughtful porch sitting time. Undoubtedly some of it will be like last night, simply letting my thoughts run idly through my head.
But I’m intentionally planning some time for pure thinking - setting my mind on a topic and keeping it there for more than 30 seconds at a time. And even if I don’t come up with anything that’s worth more than a penny, I still think it will be time well spent.
Check out today’s Write On Wednesday post, and add your two cents worth...
One of my very worst writing habits is failure to think.
An idea pops into my head and I sit down at the keyboard and start writing, letting the words take me where they will.
Sometimes I sit at the blank screen and start typing something, anything, again letting the words take me down one path after another until I stumble upon a makeshift destination.
While I believe there are times this kind of writing is valuable, I also believe I rely on it too much, that I write too casually without taking the time to think through my ideas or turn them carefully around in my mind as I would an interesting rock or seashell found on the beach.
I believe real writers must think as much as they write - maybe more. Louise Penny, one of my favorite mystery writers, keeps a lovely blog where she talks about the intersection of daily life and writing. The other day, she wrote these words:
Wrote more than 2,000 words today, but not happy. I think it's close, but slightly off. Perhaps just too much detail....need to streamline it. But I walked a few times around the pond and stopped at the bench to think, and came to the conclusion that it needs tightening, sharpening, and I need to really pin down what I want this section to say and do. The purpose.
“I walked a few times around the pond and stopped at the bench to think...” Good writing needs that mulling over time, both before and after the words appear on the page. Time to consider what’s about to be said or to reconsider what has been set down in black and white.
Brenda Ueland also touches on this idea, a concept she calls “moodling” and defines as “long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.” This is how we open the door for our imagination, allow ideas to wander in and make themselves comfortable.
The pace of modern life doesn’t always allow for the kind of deep thoughtfulness I’ve decided is so important to a writer. Blogging and Facebooking and Twittering encourage us to throw ideas out there willy-nilly, to say whatever pops into our head at a given moment. After all, there is always the opportunity to post something else tomorrow, or even in 15 minutes if you so choose. Our attention is fragmented by cell phones and texts and e-mails, like noisy toddlers clamoring to be noticed.
It’s hard to silence that noise and focus on a single strand of thoughts pertaining to your work in progress.
But I believe it’s imperative to do so.
And if you can, those thoughts will be worth much more than a penny.
How about you? Do you think as much as you write? How do you invite deep thoughtfulness into your writing life?
It’s a long, lazy one this time ‘round. Summer shade sitting, cold drink sipping, beach book reading. Dirt digging and plant potting. Barbecue grilling and potato salad stirring.
Memorializing those who’ve left us, who served the family with love, devotion, and hard work. Who served the nation with bravery.
Weekending in summer. Long may it wave.
Happy Memorial Day Weekend.
Happy Summer.
