Realizing you have the time to take your time doing whatever you choose can be disconcerting. Taking too much time to do something can prove ruinous, making what results seem labored or precious. Finding the right tempo is crucial. It has to be steady, but also flexible.
A lot depends on the sort of thing you’re doing. It’s easier to find the right pace for physical labor. That’s why cooking and gardening can be so refreshing. But when it comes to writing, the best thing is just to plunge blindly ahead — going on your nerve, as Frank O’Hara put it.
What’s more, after years of having large chunks of your time pretty much spoken for, the lack of constraint on your time is itself a problem. You’re free to daydream, the way you did when you were a kid. Only when you were a kid, you daydreamed about what you would do when you grew up. Now, you are grown up, and there isn’t much left to dream about. So memories intrude, and you wonder at how you got to where you are, how you became who you are. Not that it matters, since, however it happened, there’s not much you can do about it.
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Hm ... I daydream about my characters - much more interesting than daydreaming about myself!
ReplyDeleteNot being a fiction writer, I can't do that. And the daydreams in my case are a useful, if uncomfortable, adjunct to poetry. But I would think it would be nice to spend a good deal of your time in the company of characters you have created.
ReplyDeleteLovely reflection, Frank. The prose has a poetical feel and I rather think you've got a poem coming on...I hope so, anyway!
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