The Grumpy Old Bookman once said that bloggers could be divided into linkers and thinkers. I remember this because he cited me as an example of a blogger who was both. Lately, though, I’ve been doing much more linking than thinking. I am now aiming to remedy this. I hope to post from time to time — maybe not every day, but often enough — some thoughts of my own.
In particular, I’ve been wanting to write about what it’s like to make the change from a very busy professional life to a presumably more leisurely retirement. After all, this blog now purports to demonstrate that there is life for a book-review editor after retirement. Whether this will prove of interest to anyone but me I have no way of knowing – though I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.
The actual transition from employment to retirement wasn’t at leisurely. There’s a lot of paperwork involved. It is tedious and I have no intention of discussing it. I’m just glad that’s over.
The first really interesting thing I noticed once I didn’t have to get up and make my way to the office every morning was how tightly wound I was. Working for a daily newspaper involves being able to cope with the pressure of deadline and much else. I was apparently good enough at that to not even feel pressured. But once the pressure was off, I kept acting as if it were still there. I had to remind myself that I had time now to enjoy the doing of what I was doing. I didn’t simply have to get it done and start on whatever came next.
The paradoxical effect of this was that, while I had more time at my disposal, I was getting less done, largely because I was like a kid on Christmas morning: There was so much I wanted to do and had time to do that I couldn’t decide exactly which thing it was I wanted to do most and if I started something, I soon found myself easily distracted by something else that also seemed interesting. In other words, I was having a hard time prioritizing, as they say, because now I was pretty much altogether free to set my own. Having a job, of course, takes care of a lot of that for you.
Happily, I am starting to notice a routine emerging. More about that, though, in a subsequent post.
Tell me the secret of your routine, Frank. I had six months at home to finish my novel and I spent about six days on it. The rest of time I was distracted by all kinds of things I preferred to do: read, garden, cook, hang out with family and friends. Only deadlines make me write. As far as self-starting goes, I'm a wet match.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that you're including more of your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteWhen I stopped working at the university in order to write, it only worked out because I told myself it must be exactly like a job, with regular working hours (and a word count) to which I then held myself with strict self-discipline. It probably would have been much more difficult if I hadn't emerged (escaped?) from what was already a tightly scheduled lifestyle.
Now I find myself relaxing my rigid timetable sometimes. Perhaps I'm less productive - but more willing to accept that novels can't be forced, can't be rushed either.
Here's Hilary Mantel on the process of writing a novel, from her excellent foreword to the PEN/Ackerley-shortlisted POD memoir Who Is It That Can Tell Me Who I Am? mentioned in an earlier post of yours:
'Though the important creative leaps may be made within a matter of seconds, analysis is slow in the way that writing a novel is slow; it is an open-ended commitment to watching a narrative unfold, and you can't force the pace without selling yourself short. We need to wonder if our addiction to the quick fix makes us gullible.'
Here's the link again to the foreword (and the memoir itself):
http://www.janehaynes-ebook.com/ebookIntro.aspx?Introductions_currentPage=4
Or:
http://tiny.cc/6RhXk
(You might also be interested in what Mantel says about science and living by faith.)
I completely understand, Frank. I doubt there are many professions where the sense of a daily deadline hovers above the office like in journalism. It's surreal, really, considering that the pages have to be released at a certain time every night, and then, everything looks like it is already dated. I think it's worse for TV crew because for them, this sense of producing news can squeeze to every hour, minute, second. I make the oped page for a business daily and often articles get changes at the last minute, and this daily rush to get things together so that they may go to print in time can be quite unnerving, even if you get used to it.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post, Frank, and look forward to more of them.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to relax into another mode on weekends and holidays, when once has such an intense rhythm for the rest of the time.