Mental Meanderings

Page After Page Exercise 12: My Lover, Writing?

*chuckles* I really enjoyed chapter 6 of Page After Page by Heather Sellers. It's all about the relationship you have with your writing (and reading) and its priority in your life. Heather talks about 'sleeping with books' and I'm sure most writers know exactly what we mean by this. How many of us have books by the bed or even in bed with us?

I know that I have two books on my bed right now and another dozen within reach. Books are a constant in my life, just like pens and paper that you'll find in multiple locations around my home you'll find books. Writing books, romances, fantasies, childrens books, poetry books, programming books. I love books and I wish there were three times as many hours in a day so that I could read more.

When it comes to the love I have for my writing and for language there is this unbreakable bond that very few other things in my life could compare to. My children obviously have this bond to their own degrees as well, and a couple of other select people but it's never the same as the importance writing has in my life. I've known I would be a writer since before I can remember. I have poetry I wrote years ago as a child, I was a poet even then. All the while I've strived to be a writer and lived life knowing that this was all I ever wanted to do and all I ever demanded for myself.

I give up so much for my passions. There is a lot I could live without but books, pens, paper... I couldn't breath without them. I don't think I could survive without them. I try to imagine that sort of life and all I picture is me dressed all in white looking at four barren walls and restraints on the beds. A mental institute. Writing keeps me sane. Or as sane as I'll ever be I guess and without it I honestly believe I just wouldn't be able to live a human life.

The alternative is pretty horrific which is perhaps why I get very overwhelmed and really hate myself and the world when I don't write. When I should but I don't or I want to but I can't. I try to focus on the kind of life writing can give me, what I truly want, where I want my life to go and how writing can take me there. It's not very easy to keep images like that in mind because things in life keep changing and the images shimmer based on what's happening.

For example, I can picture my wrting office, a detached room, in the backyard of this house... Except, there is every chance I won't have that reality because there is an alternate possibility that means I mightn't be living in this house. It gives me unstable footing because for a while I'd had that image firmly fixed in my mind, it's a good dream, I don't know if it's one I could transplant elsewhere.

I've always tried to avoid looking forward so much. I've been told how important it is to visualise what you want but with my moods I'd learned not to fix any expectations. Disappointments rock my world too much. Expecting what fails to come to pass sends me into serious shame spirals that can destroy me from the inside out. If I set myself to that specific image and never accomplish it then no matter how great the alternatives might be I'll still suffer that insecurity that goes with failure.

But I love my writing, and I love my books, and yes, I sleep with them. I don't always treat it with the respect it deserves or give myself the credit of being good at what I do. I neglect him and I fail to give him the warm praise and compliments a lover deserves. I abuse him and run him down and fail to treat him right. I honestly don't know why he stays around, surely he could do better than me. But then, he'll never have a more loyal, devoted and persistant lover. My writing and I are life mates and while we might frequently argue, the make up sex is fantastic.