The Beginning of the End
And the Beginning of the Beginning
Life is quiet again. I woke up this morning at 6 a.m. and came downstairs, woke up Sam, and got a glass of water. I peeked down into the basement and, sure enough, Abra was already in the shower. The living room light was on, so I knew Maile was doing yoga, and the sunrise began spreading a small white glow on the glass in our front door, the door that faces east. I opened one of the windows, just a hair, and cold air streamed in like water over a dam.
These are the cool, quiet days, the dying days, when the trees in our backyard begin to turn and the daylight shortens. When the moon stares out icily from swiftly moving clouds, and the frost returns. Soon, in a month or less, the leaves will fall and then the sunset will be visible again, through the branches.
I have always loved the fall, for as long as I can remember. It is my favorite season.
I wrote not too long ago about quitting writing this year, how I went months without writing fiction. There was a fallowness in my writing spirit, a sense that NOW IS NOT THE TIME, and after all of the losses I found myself turning things over in my mind. So I wrote here in Substack and I wrote for clients and I read books but I did not write fiction.
I would, however, occasionally approach the story in my mind, as you might approach a fire pit, and I looked inside for embers. I held my hands over the ash, amazed that there was still warmth to be found.
The day after the fair was over, I went to that fire pit and poked around a little, and I found an ember. I put some kindling on it, and blew softly, and a flame, the smallest flame, flared into being.
It is the story I have been considering for a long time, a father-son story, a faith-doubt story. A retelling of sorts.
I worked on it last week, and I’ve been working on it this week, and what was 5,000 words is now 10,000 words and I can feel the story gathering momentum, so that soon I will reach that point where there is no turning back. I push on towards that point.
I think every good creator must get to the point where they don't give a damn what anyone else thinks of their work. Where the vision for the work becomes the central target, and all desire to be liked or popular gives way to what the work must be.
My mind returns to John Steinbeck’s journal that he kept while writing East of Eden, now published as Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters:
“And I must forget even that I want it to be good. Such things belong only in the planning stage. Once it starts, it should not have any intention save only to be written.”
He, too, found himself looking back on a painful period of life, wondering.
“And still I do not think I could have written it before now. Of course it would have been a book, but it would not have been this book…The last few years have been painful. I don’t know whether they have hurt permanently or not. Certainly they have changed me. I would have been stone if they had not. I hope they have not taken too much away from me.”
We live, don’t we, knowing we have been changed?
We write, don’t we, hoping the years have not taken too much from us?
I think every good creator must get to the point where they don't give a damn what anyone else thinks of their work.
Thanks for this great reminder, Shawn!
I haven't written in several months. Somehow, I got into what I call "making pretty" (not Art, and hardly even Craft) with stickers and then stencils. I've NEVER done anything artsy/crafty. Now I spend hours in complete, satisfying silence, putting together shapes and colors. It's been hugely therapeutic for my mind to occupy itself with nothing more than whether the color of this butterfly goes with the color of that flower, and to feel pleasure when I see them together on the page. I guess it's the simple satisfaction of Making, as you once wrote about with Leo's offering. My time of "making prettty" has me wanting to return to my WIP with that same feeling of low pressure--just Making this story for the pleasure of enjoying what I made.