500 words a crack.  During the school year I can’t commit to that regular, daily habit that is essential for writers, but I can say that when I sit down to write, I will hit my word count.  And I think, as usual, I am going to have to freewrite and bitch for a while before I know what is to emerge from this.

I have been a writer my whole life, but not a writer who has been driven to complete anything that has not been commissioned by someone else.  I always read that people write because “they must.”  That has not been my experience.  I have demons, like most people, but those demons don’t compel me to write.  Who knows, though?  Maybe my mental health will improve if I give voice to the doubters banging around in my psyche.

With Patricia’s help, I built a big, wobbly table in Foresthill and put my typewriter on it.  I wrote bad poetry all through my youth, and read it at open readings.  It was enough to shock back then, to say the phrase “bury my face in balls” and listen for the crowd reaction, to find myself suddenly surrounded by young male poets after the reading, and to believe that they were there because they appreciated my way with language, not because they could imagine their balls on my face.  Where have I ended up?  Satisfied by writing good and interesting papers in school, writing for work and seeing my heavily edited words printed on glossy sales and company promotional materials, and then finally, teaching young people to write, and reading thousands upon thousands of dull, predictable essays, waiting for the occasional excellent one to surface from the pile.  And they do.  I’ve coached very good writers, and I’ve helped mediocre writers get better, and enabled bad writers to write one coherent, clear essay to carry with them into college so they can say to themselves, “See? It is possible.  I am able to write – it may not be beautiful or incredibly insightful, but it is clear and understandable.”

But what about me?  What about the things I must say?  What about my topics?  What are my concerns as a writer and as a person?  Much of what I have to say concerns my family and my life, but I do want to leave that space and move into a fictional, imaginative space, where I am free to tell the truth without naming names.  I think this may be the way to go.  Memoir is so confessional, denier cri—of the moment— but I do believe that moment has passed.  But again, Anne Lamott would say I am focused on the wrong end of the process, and I believe that is true.  I cannot think about markets and publishers; I must think only of what will emerge.

I was listening to Nicole Krauss when she was interviewed on NPR right as Great House was coming out.  The interviewer asked, “Where do you get your ideas for your stories?” and she said something that I found enormously helpful and encouraging— she said, “I have no idea.”  She went on to explain that she sat down to write, never knowing what the story was, who the characters were, what the problem was; she knew nothing.  The interviewer then asked, “Isn’t that dangerous?  What if all of your work comes to naught?” (Or, something like that.  I’m not sure she used the word “naught.”)  And Nicole Krauss said, firmly establishing herself as another writing hero, model, and guide, “I feel you must work right on the edge of failure.  That’s where the energy is.” Or something like that.  Brilliant.

But it’s HARD to do that.  I want my writing to matter.  But I am willing, finally and at last, to sit at this computer and write, every day…and by that I mean, every day that it is humanly possible, so if I miss a day, I am not going to give up on myself in despair.  And if nothing comes of it, so be it.  It is worthwhile work, even if no one else ever reads it.  And, I am going to post every week to the alexfaye.com blog.  In fact, I think I may put this out there, right now.  No one reads me, except perhaps my sister.  So I will write directly to her, with her face in my mind, and tell her everything that I am thinking.

Writing, like Weight Watchers, is just something that I do.  It’s a daily practice.  It is imperfect, and I will make mistakes.  But the trick is to return to it, every day.  It’s Zen Buddhism.  It’s yoga.  It’s a way through.  Today’s word count:  789.