Persevering with WRITING

Everyone remembers the moment Beth died in Little Women. It brings me to tears every single time I read it. There is another moment in that beautiful book that makes me cry as well. Do you know it? I can barely bring myself to write these words… It was when, gulp, Amy burnt Jo’s manuscript. I know!!! The book she had been writing for weeks, pen on paper. Amy put that writing in the fire and watched every single one of those pages go up in flames! What sort of monster is she???

I picture Jo with her ink stained fingers and calico apron frenziedly searching the house from top to bottom for the precious bundle and I hold my breath hoping she might find it this time. All those hours spent catching a story that inhabited her every waking thought before it decided to take off and find someone else to do it. The relief at the end of each writing session that she had managed to transform a shapeless idea into sosmething that could be shared. The tickle of hope that perhaps it might find a home and readers and maybe, just maybe, earn some money that would support her family.

When that paper burned it sent a beautiful dream up in smoke. Jo, in an act of generosity we could all aspire to, eventually forgave her sister and Amy was properly contrite for the enormous crime committed in a fit of temper, but I’m not sure I can eve forget that terrible act. Destroying a manuscript? Unforgivable.

Writing seems to lend itself to being burned. The mythology of the Great Library of Alexandria is one that strikes fear into the hears of all students and creators. The story goes that the library held more knowledge and great thought than we have ever had in human history… and then it was all lost in a conflagration larger than any fire we can imagine.

Like so many historical tales, the reality of this one is far less fact based and more on the side of a lesson to be learned. Most likely the library suffered repeated fire events of decades and then suffered the final, ignominious indignity of neglect and decay. The symbolism of the loss, however, continues to strike fear into us all. Humans have burned books to destroy culture and hope and purpose. It’s a crime that strikes at the heart of humanity. It’s a horrific event no matter how you look at it!

During my recent visit to Canberra I spent a morning at the National Library. The free building tour took me behind the scenes for the first time and I understood for the first time the many levels of protection applied to the knowledge held in our culture. From specialised lighting to backup systems to security to firesafe materials, the books and recordings and other works of precious art are as safe as they can possibly be in that revered building. The lesson of the Great Library of Alexandria about the value of knowledge has been learned.

This concept of written work being temporary is one I’ve wondered about many times. Lucky for me, my word of the year is persevere; lucky because on days like today, perseverance is all I’ve got to keep me hopeful!  I’m in the midst of a disaster. Well, a significant set back that has the potential to be disastrous. OK, perhaps it could be called a first world problem. Whatever we want to call it, there is a writing challenge in front of me and I’m not sure how to overcome it.

I have a collection of different storage methods in my office. Paper files. USB sticks. A few floppy disks. VHS tapes (of our wedding!). Strips of camera film. I am only just beginning to explore the cloud as a place of storage. It seems imaginary to me and I just don’t know if I can trust these important things to a made up idea!

Back to my writing problem. I write everything in a program called Scrivener. I love it, it feels like I’m working in an old fashioned desk with a filing cabinet at my side and all my research on a pinboard in front of me. Like my old school self I keep everything in those files. All my stories. The research and ideas for future novels. Blog drafts and plans and social media thoughts. All of it. And, like my old school self, I don’t keep a copy anywhere else. Do I know better? Yes. Did that make a difference? No. Is there a chance I might have lost every piece of it? Sigh…

Scrivener has crashed and Tallulah is exhausted with the effort of trying to retrieve it. Smooth Speech is out of reach. Desiderata might as well not exist. The draft blog, for what it’s worth, was only half done so I feel a little as though I might have escaped a bullet there…

 Some authors will tell you it’s devastating to lose their words and that, once written, it cannot ever be repeated. Others will tell of the release they feel when through some trick of fate (or technology) a file is wiped or a program crashes and work is gone forever they are given a chance to rewrite better than it was the first time. There’s some clarity that appears and the essence of the work remains, ready to be reshaped in a form that is somehow better than the original.

But I wonder if the realisation that my words are vulnerable and the stories I tell are likely to be forgotten is actually a gift. It feels like freedom. An invitation to create without consequence. Liz Gilbert taught me many years ago that the greatest gift a creator can give themselves is the permission to love the act of making something. The end product is just that, the outcome of a beautiful process. Strangely enough (synchronicity again???) Osher Günsberg reflected on the exact same thing in his podcast this week. Writing is like dancing or painting or podcasting! You simply have to love doing the thing, for the outcome is neither guaranteed nor necessarily satisfying in and of itself. Either way, when Flow is with you and you are loving what you do, you will be happy. I have no aspirations of greatness or fame so have never considered my work to be of such value that it must be protected like the priceless works in the National Library. If it burns, so be it. I had fun making it. #processnotproduct

Meanwhile Tallulah is updating. I guess I’ll go weed more of the garden while I wait. Only about 10 hours remaining. Fingers crossed she finds Scrivener when she refreshes. I wouldn’t mind adding a bit to Smooth Speech and I had an idea for an edit for Human Doings while hanging out the washing. Then again, maybe I’ll get a new idea that’s even better than what I had before. Who knows?