Thursday
Oct212010
Right Timing
Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 03:44PM
crossposted at How She Does It.
This is me at 20 weeks pregnant. Halfway there. And celebrating with silver lamé pants from American Apparel. (They look fabulous, if I don't say so myself.)
If you could walk into my house right now, you'd gasp at how neat and organized it is, even though it is less than 12 hours after I returned from a week away. My nesting powers are supernatural and focused right now. (And I'm a typical first-born Virgo, so I already LOVE order.) I unpacked my bags within 30 minutes and even watered a few plants that needed love before bed.
Order, cleanliness, calm, tying off loose ends, extreme productivity -- these are what motivate me right now. Left brain stuff.
I still have the threads of a novel in my mind, and I know that I will write it someday. But most right brain activities do not turn me on right now. I haven't sat down to a writing practice in months. I am writing, but it's for clients and other projects. Even my Project 365 has lost its lustre for me; most days, it's a chore to remember to take a photo.
Perhaps I'm so lit up by order because my body is currently engaged in one of the most staggeringly incomprehensible acts of creativity known to mankind.
Creative people often use pregnancy and birth analogies to describe their processes of writing a book, launch a new business, complete a painting. I thought for sure that I'd write my novel while I was pregnant, finishing it cleanly before I turned my attentions to my new family member.
That ain't happenin'.
Which is why I got utterly vexed by this description in the usually-inspiring Writers' Almanac's bio of Tracy Chevalier:
She started writing historical novels, and her second book, Girl With a Pearl Earring (1999), was a huge best-seller... For the book, Chevalier was inspired one day when she was staring at a poster she had bought when she was 19, a copy of Johannes Vermeer's painting Girl With a Pearl Earring...She started the book right away, but she was pregnant and she didn't want the book to get lost in her life as a new mother, so she researched and wrote the whole novel in just eight months.
Well, shit.
SHE did it, so why aren't I?
I only have five months left to research and write this entire epic novel (or possibly novel series). Why didn't I start earlier? Who cares about a clean house if I'm a failure as a writer?
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH
You get the gist. We all have these crazy-making voices.
After I calmed down and stopped beating up on myself, I heard a deeper, truer level of voice in my head.
Maybe, for me, layering a huge creative act on top of another huge creative act would make my writing thin and stressed out. Maybe I will need an orderly, energetically-cleansed house after this baby arrives more than I will need to have locked down my best-selling novel.
Maybe there's a reason that I haven't written this book yet.
Maybe there is something about dancing through the transformative doors of birth that will unlock within me precisely what I need to make this book magic.
Maybe, just maybe, I am in exactly the right place at the right time.
Breathe.
Put on those lamé pants and take a dance break.
P.S. There is also something to be said about the enormous strides our company has taken in the last month, and the necessary creativity I am pouring into it to flow with the momentum we've been building for two years. And how writing a novel on top of that on top of being pregnant might just make my head explode. But that's another post.
This is me at 20 weeks pregnant. Halfway there. And celebrating with silver lamé pants from American Apparel. (They look fabulous, if I don't say so myself.)If you could walk into my house right now, you'd gasp at how neat and organized it is, even though it is less than 12 hours after I returned from a week away. My nesting powers are supernatural and focused right now. (And I'm a typical first-born Virgo, so I already LOVE order.) I unpacked my bags within 30 minutes and even watered a few plants that needed love before bed.
Order, cleanliness, calm, tying off loose ends, extreme productivity -- these are what motivate me right now. Left brain stuff.
I still have the threads of a novel in my mind, and I know that I will write it someday. But most right brain activities do not turn me on right now. I haven't sat down to a writing practice in months. I am writing, but it's for clients and other projects. Even my Project 365 has lost its lustre for me; most days, it's a chore to remember to take a photo.
Perhaps I'm so lit up by order because my body is currently engaged in one of the most staggeringly incomprehensible acts of creativity known to mankind.
Creative people often use pregnancy and birth analogies to describe their processes of writing a book, launch a new business, complete a painting. I thought for sure that I'd write my novel while I was pregnant, finishing it cleanly before I turned my attentions to my new family member.
That ain't happenin'.
Which is why I got utterly vexed by this description in the usually-inspiring Writers' Almanac's bio of Tracy Chevalier:
She started writing historical novels, and her second book, Girl With a Pearl Earring (1999), was a huge best-seller... For the book, Chevalier was inspired one day when she was staring at a poster she had bought when she was 19, a copy of Johannes Vermeer's painting Girl With a Pearl Earring...She started the book right away, but she was pregnant and she didn't want the book to get lost in her life as a new mother, so she researched and wrote the whole novel in just eight months.
Well, shit.
SHE did it, so why aren't I?
I only have five months left to research and write this entire epic novel (or possibly novel series). Why didn't I start earlier? Who cares about a clean house if I'm a failure as a writer?
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH
You get the gist. We all have these crazy-making voices.
After I calmed down and stopped beating up on myself, I heard a deeper, truer level of voice in my head.
Maybe, for me, layering a huge creative act on top of another huge creative act would make my writing thin and stressed out. Maybe I will need an orderly, energetically-cleansed house after this baby arrives more than I will need to have locked down my best-selling novel.
Maybe there's a reason that I haven't written this book yet.
Maybe there is something about dancing through the transformative doors of birth that will unlock within me precisely what I need to make this book magic.
Maybe, just maybe, I am in exactly the right place at the right time.
Breathe.
Put on those lamé pants and take a dance break.
P.S. There is also something to be said about the enormous strides our company has taken in the last month, and the necessary creativity I am pouring into it to flow with the momentum we've been building for two years. And how writing a novel on top of that on top of being pregnant might just make my head explode. But that's another post.
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