1
Hey. Want to know a secret? Come closer. Closer. Ok, that’s close enough, maybe take back half a step. That’s good. Thanks. Ok. Ready?
Being is more difficult than doing. So when being gets very very hard, do something. Anything. Something easy. Something simple.
It doesn’t make being any easier, but it does give you a break from it.
You’re welcome.
2
I’m sitting by the river, combining being and doing. I walked over here (doing). I’m smoking a cigarillo (doing). I’m listening to an audiobook (doing). And I’m also very still, looking at the river and not thinking (being). The sun is kissing my face. I let it—it won’t be around for much longer. Equinox has come and gone, and the darkness is coming.
But today, there is sun and warmth and the river is flowing.
I’m grateful.
3
It’s been a rough week / month / quarter. Sidenote: Working in corporate makes you think in quarters. You don’t otherwise, right? You think in weeks and months, maybe school semesters, hopefully seasons. Quarters are very much a corporate construction. Not actually real, and yet there.
Nothing feels real right now, including myself. I feel like a bit actor in a badly plotted movie. Nobody actually gave the screenplay much thought. They did all the other things—scouted sets, hired actors, arranged for the film crew. Then someone yelled action and someone else (maybe me) yelled, “What are we supposed to do?” and nobody answered…
Yeah. That summarizes my current mood very well. I don’t now the script, the director is absent but there’s a camera pointed at my face and, well, I need to do something.
I open my mouth to speak. To do. The scene stumbles along. Ends. Another one begins.
The randomness and chaos of it is exhausting.
4
It’s been a rough week / month / quarter.
Mark this: nothing bad has actually happened. But there is no controlling narrative. My life feels like a series of poorly written vignettes strung together by a demiurge who isn’t so much evil as incompetent, and who clearly does not understand plot at all. Me, I like plot. But I’ve kind of lost it. I don’t even think I’m in the Dark Moment. It’s more like I’m in the saggy middle. During the editing process, most of this quarter’s scenes would end up on the floor. They’re not helping move the story along. At all.
What would?
More importantly, what the heck is the story?
5
That, by the way, is the question you need to ask yourself when a piece of writing isn’t working. What’s the story? What is it that you’re trying to tell, and why? (Also, for whom—that’s even more fundamental. But generally, I know that. Right? Yes. I do.)
And if you can’t answer those questions, well, you should probably stop writing. Go for a walk. Sit by the river. Feel the sun on your face, and maybe water between your toes.
6
I take two hours, maybe two and a half hours to go buy a cake. This could have been a 20-30 minute task. I make it long, on purpose. I walk. I walk the long way. I stop at a cafe and get a (not very good) decaf mocha. I walk some more. I sit by the river and smoke my cigarillo and try to be still. I walk some more.
I buy the cake.
I’m exhausted and I ponder getting an Uber but decide that I won’t really be any less tired if I take that short cut. And if I walk back, I’ll be doing something and moving and feeling the sun on my face, and maybe something will shift.
Maybe the plot will reveal itself.
7
I’m not a fan of waiting for the plot to reveal itself. I’m firmly in the plot it first, fairly meticulously, camp. Allow for some deviation and spontaneity and the occasional detour, sure. But figuring out the plot first is fundamental to the kind of writing I do.
And to the living I do. The life I have didn’t happen by accident. I designed it. I know this. Right?
8
The cat is not sympathetic. She is not concerned with plot, although she is a fan of routine and predictability. She gives me the kind of look that only cats can deliver—and that they only deliver to stupid humans. It says, very clearly, “Why do you make everything so complicated? Come sit with me in the sun and rub my belly. No, I lied, what are you doing, don’t touch me.”
9
So I’m writing. And this is good. It’s doing. The story has a plot, a purpose, an intended reader. And a deadline. It’s largely finished, but it’s also a hot mess. It feels like it will stay a hot mess forever. And it might.
I poke at it gingerly. Tenderly. Then ruthlessly.
Still a hot mess.
But it’s moving along. I guess.
10
At its heart, the story is about doing versus being. I think. Sometimes, I know exactly what it’s about, and sometimes I feel, well. You know. Like it doesn’t exist. I don’t exist.
The fact that everything I do is made up, not real, doesn’t help.
Still.
I know the secret. Remember? Doing is easier than being.
So I do.
Thank you.
xoxo
“Jane”
PS This was much more profound and interesting and funny in its Platonic form. Sigh. But. It’s done. Written. Revised, just a little. Published. Now excuse me while I go back to navel-gazing and being… with the consolation that for a little bit, I did something.
