Hello,
The house is still, quiet, warm. Somewhere nearby, the cat sleeps. A low hum of traffic bleeds from the walls.
This should be a time to relish, a time to sit rattling off words, giving in to the desire of the page. A time to stare at sentences containing the same words but arranged in a different order, my mouth not yet able to discern the subtle taste of each. This is the lone time, the me time, the time when consciousness seeks to recharge from the expenditure of the day.
This—this moment of solitude—this is when I write.
*cough*
This is when I should write. Yet … I feel nothing. There is a void, some vacant and vacuous space that withholds all it could reveal.
And it worries me.
Such feelings are rare. My somehow year of writing has been fuelled by a constant flow of something each week, an expansion that burns and longs to escape. Where is that something? Where hides the flame?
I started this post late on Monday, a time when, usually, a draft has formed. But now it is Tuesday and the week looms large. There is naught but a few lines. Now the traffic is ever-present, the commuters of dawn already ahead in their sleek acceptance of the day. Yet here I sit, not ahead but behind. Here I am unable to craft the conversation between Renn and Brae’s father; here I fret over how Tess will describe her worldview in the city of Vi; here I weep over the plight of a nameless protagonist, one who, so enraptured by a girl named Emmi, refuses to speak to me. Here I sit, wondering whether any of that means anything at all.
I live, often, in the days-that-never-have, caught in the threads-of-not-yet. Paths, ramifications, what-ifs, my brain tracing lines of worst-case to ensure they are never walked, finding instead those that feel right. It is tiring. It does nothing to ground me in the present.
And so now it is Wednesday, and this is all. There is no fiction here. I am along the Victorian coastline, west of Melbourne, at a small beach town. I’m here for a work conference, a yearly excursion where colleagues gather to network and talk science. There’s a lot of that going on. I sit and watch and listen to the enthusiasm and vigour with which they speak, confused that I can, when needed, wear that hat, that the milliner of my mind could, in a mere moment, proffer it up for me to wear and allow me to move about the room as though I wore something that truly fit.
But it doesn’t. I worry that it doesn’t. Not anymore. The material frays. It is lopsided, obvious.
The engagement I desire is of words and worlds, the brilliance of the page, the quill and the ink.
And maybe that’s OK. Maybe it’s all just a sea of people whose lives are riddled with doubt and confusion and longing. Maybe it’s just that time of year when I realise I have made another full revolution around the sun. Such orbits are not limitless. Each brings its own questions. Or maybe I don’t know what I’m saying, because it’s Thursday evening now, and I’m not sure the parts of this post even connect. The sun has set, now. The kookaburras and cockatoos have settled in the trees. For now I make peace without the hum of traffic, instead listening to the idle song of the waves.
This :-
“I live, often, in the days-that-never-have, caught in the threads-of-not-yet.”
When you can create such magical sentences, no matter what you’re writing about, Nathan, then this will always be enough. The flame is always inside you. It’ll never be extinguished, but sometimes it just needs fuel to bloom again. That fuel will come from somewhere. That somewhere is a place that we wished we could easily find, but it is too gossamer and fleeting to be tied down, but yet seems to seek us out when we most need it
The Scottish band, Big Country had a great lyric :-
“Some days will stay a thousand years
Some pass like the flash of a spark
Who knows where all our days go?”
These are things we all ponder trying to make sense of where we’re going
And as Kung Fu Panda says, “Today is a gift, that is why it’s called the present” 🙂
Enjoy the gift of days and nurture the flame. It’s all we can do. And that will always be enough 👍🏼
You manage to write about something eloquently while lamenting not writing. I often think it helps to write why it is hard to write (fiction) and that sometimes new ideas form. It reminds me of parts of Solenoid I have been reading (nearly finished).
This part - there is a tension so personal and interior - one that only a writer can be aware of I think --
"I sit and watch and listen to the enthusiasm and vigour with which they speak, confused that I can, when needed, wear that hat, that the milliner of my mind could, in a mere moment, proffer it up for me to wear and allow me to move about the room as though I wore something that truly fit.
But it doesn’t. I worry that it doesn’t. Not anymore. The material frays. It is lopsided, obvious.
The engagement I desire is of words and worlds, the brilliance of the page, the quill and the ink."
Also, what a subtitle!