Writing the Novel

Once and for all.  And no time to waste.

I have attempted to write a novel for a very long time.  Started and stopped more times than I care to admit.  Even let myself wander off with the idea that I should write a screenplay instead.  Started and stopped a few times while on that road, too.  I have maneuvered through life chasing goals, creating new ones, and jumping from project to project, certain that I am on a sustainable path that will lead to creative fulfillment, while all the while harboring great thoughts about finishing my novel.

I have felt like an unrequited lover. But I am wrong about that.

The urge to write is always with me.  The energy is always there.  The spirit, the madness, the temptress, the angel never surrenders, is never disloyal.  Even though I mostly ignore her.  I love her (the idea of writing) from a distance.  A thought, a character trait, a phrase will pivot in my imagination, wake me up in the middle of the night, tap me on the shoulder while I am driving, and I am reminded of what is really in my heart.  I write the ideas down, and each time imagine for a moment how the story – our story: the spirit, angel, madness, temptress – will look on the page.  But the little notes get tucked here or there, and another project compels me to take notice, and I am off to the races, looking in the rear view mirror as she waves goodbye.  This long-suffering goddess who smiles every time I share my intentions with others, knowing full well that I will falter and fail.  She dutifully waits for me to reclaim what she has noted over and over again is mine.

Perhaps I have a trust issue!

I was recently hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, a place that is holy to me on many levels.  Walking along the boulder-strewn path, I would spot a tender green sprout reaching up through last fall’s brown and brittle leaves.  It knew of nothing else to do but grow.  And so it was, full of intention and instinct and divine self-awareness.  Nothing else mattered.  No one even need see this young sprout, or her flowers once she bloomed.  She simply was.

Writing is a lot like that sprout.  There is simply the act of writing, of reaching through fears and procrastinations.  There is only the doing.  The angel knows this, she persists because that is what angels do.  That is what creative intention does.  I could spend my whole life in denial, and it wouldn’t matter to her one bit.  She is only doing what she knows to do.  She reaches through the dried and brittle years of abandonment and neglect.  And I am  brought to my knees, filled with gratitude and shame.

How many of us feel this way about a passion, a person, a place?

Here is where the story turns.

I am going to write the novel, once and for all.  People around me are falling ill, while others are soaring doing what they love.  There is simply no excuse for not following my heart.  Life as it presents is full of Facebook and Twitter and cable television news and NPR and a myriad projects I refuse to delegate.

Enough already.

I can either be addicted to my goals or devoted to my writing.  I can either be an acquaintance to the idea of writing or accomplished at the task. There is only now.  This is all we have.  Now is the time to write my novel.

Angels around us

Below are two blog posts from two separate sources that, combined with other forces in my life, have enabled me to finally see so clearly that which has been in front of me always.  I hope that you may find your way, and follow whatever speaks to you.  If not now, when?