Day 81

I am not one for wallowing or whining. I have been unable to write because I have fallen into horrendous laziness. I mean to write and I wake up early to do it when the house is quiet but I refuse to leave my bed and then I decide I can write in bed, if that is what it takes, but I don't write much because I know inside that one needs to sit up properly or even stand if possible and somehow I convince myself to stay in bed and an hour passes and I think I need a little nap so I turn over and then I am done. When I wake up the next day and cannot reach the notebook I write in I decide that maybe I should be writing short pieces or god forbid finish the other 9 things I have on the go and the bed feels warm and I decide to get up and be a super mom for an hour and then go to work. Everyday the little emails come from the writing group and everyday they are right on. I don't know the whole the story yet and maybe I don't care but I do because the last time I wrote I discovered a love triangle that was not there before and that was interesting and I felt curious but then the bad me drank 4 glasses of wine and stoked the fire and got under the quilt and fell asleep until the middle of the night and went to bed and read the rest of "War of Art" and realized that my territory is my work, I am happiest there and I just happen to have a lot of it right now and so the story trudges on. It takes me a long time to do things, we know this. Many things I have done and finished and liked took me a long time to do. I might not finish the story in the prescribed remaining 9 days even though I keep telling myself I will suddenly begin to go hard and race to the finish line my pages flying around me. It won't happen that way. I will take a walk each day and find time here and there to write and rewrite and to think about the whole thing in pieces and I will not sling mud at myself and tell myself horrible things about my habits and tendencies, instead I will re read all the emails and be curious about the story and one day it will resolve itself and the whole experience will be framed as positive because it was the first time and I took it on and I kept going.

Today, a link

In writing my novel I am being pulled into an arena that is all about a standard form of story telling and because I am inexperienced I am following it. It is like learning a language I may never speak or understand and I feel lost and foreign in the face of it but I am sticking with it. I am reminded of Lydia Davis who when I was introduced to her writing style felt like a sign from the universe that maybe I could be a writer too. While I understood that reality is what you make around yourself and not something that is thrust upon you I had not been able to translate that to the way I saw words and stories. I am becoming more comfortable with this notion and Lydia Davis is the embodiment of all that is possible in the realm of story telling.

Light and rain.

Wrote 1200 words this morning. It's raining again but I actually feel okay about it. The dread I felt yesterday going into the barn to clean the chicks pen dissipated quickly, somehow the thick mat of shit and straw did not strike me as that disgusting. This morning they were all hungry so I just fed them and cleaned their water, I will change their bedding later on. I checked in on my laying hens 3 and found them still roosting in the dark coop. Lazy wenches. I went and got a light for them and set the timer, it will come on at 5am when I get up to write and stay on until noon. I watched them as they adjusted to the light coming to life almost instantly and went outside to scratch around. I even gave them a few cock-a-doodle-dos to bring home the point. The dog shot me a weird look. I guess the new darkness has it's effect on all of us. I went to sleep at around 7:30pm last night, a trend I really don't want to fall into but something happens to me after dinner when the darkness comes early. I fall into a low level temporary depression. I have things I want to do but it's nearly impossible to motivate myself and I can only see the merits of lying down. Mondays are trouble for me anyway, I am blue after the weekend with Mark and not quite in full swing for a week of mothering. It passes, today is better. The rain has subsided so it's time to get out for walk, honestly I really like this life and the pace I have set for myself.

Not much.

This is all I can safely say. Tuesday I begin writing the novel in earnest and I can't talk about the story to anyone. I have to hold it close to my breast like a sacred object. In the meantime I will try and write about other stuff like the freakish chickens I am raising and our rising sadness about Eddy who is now living in care and knows it isn't right. We're all dying but his case is more acute. To tide you over here is a picture of me with my new love interest.

Untitled

So it's day 13 of the meat bird project and day 24 of the 90 Day Novel. I hope I don't confuse the two. I jut moved the chicks out of their stock tub into a child's swimming pool which felt like pure genius to me as the tractor I have for them felt too big and drafty. The pool offers some additional protection. I had one death yesterday, probably from  a heart attack due to rapid growth. These birds are genetic freaks, their thick post like legs tell the tale. I continue as I am told, to imagine the world of my story, the characters are emerging like slow moving zombies out of the primordial ooze. I am still distracted so I am reading the The War of Art which is all about resistance. It encouraged me to blog today because as we know too well not blogging is akin to becoming constipated. I have issues but I am trying to train my mind away from them and toward the world of the story. It's more interesting.

9 weeks to meat

The chicks arrived last Thursday just as we left for Oregon in the pouring rain. My partner in crime collected them and got them all cozy in the stock tank I had set up for them in my little barn. It's helpful having another person invested in this rather dodgey project. Chicks are fragile and the whole process of raising them feels precarious to me. I once drowned 25 birds by accident early on in the process when they were small and unable to stay warm. My waterer lost suction in the night and filled the metal stock tank with water, just enough to soak each little downy bird and they struggled to pile themselves up on top of each other to reach the light but it was all for naught and in the morning when I discovered the mishap they were just a wet mass of dead chicks. I was horrified. I stood in the barn and screamed for help, no one came. My daughter was 3ish at the time, I had to keep her from seeing them, the pile of transparent limp bodies, their eyes shut but visible through thin skin. I carry this horror with me and each time I go to check on them I feel a slight panic rise up in me as I step across the threshold of the barn. So far they are okay. I don't need to be caring for 30 chicks at the moment but I am, and in a way maybe it's good for me. In an effort to outrun the winter doldrums I have packed my fall beyond recognition so that everyday is filled with multiple activities. At night I write my list and in the morning I follow it like an automaton forcing myself to think less and do more. Surprisingly it seems to be working. I feel okay, less gray than usual and more energetic despite giving up my new found love, coffee. It would be nice not to have to work so hard at feeling reasonable but this is who I am so I have to try new things as my brain chemistry changes. I changed my diet recently too at the suggestion of my naturopath. My blood pressure is still high and at the moment my head is pounding but that is just today. This too shall pass. There is something purposeful about being needed by 30 tiny birds that you will one day butcher and slather in BBQ sauce. For today they need food and clean shavings and to be warm and I can handle that.

Brief Explanation from Inside

What the hell was she thinking? The goal was simple. To take a writing course. Only this schmuck, who is incapable of thought deeper than water collecting inside a contact lens can't do it. First of all she didn't consider that writing a novel in 90 days means you need to have a shred of an idea for a story. Second of all she is not doing the homework. She thinks about the story a lot but it's in such a superficial way that I am pretty sure nothing will ever come of it. Poor thing doesn't care enough about anything to make it work.What it comes down to is she doesn't care about what makes people tick enough to pay attention long enough to gather any clues about dilemma, conflict, transformation. And now the blog is suffering too, I'd cry if I had eyes. All she is excited about these days is going for little trips in the vintage trailer and being outside puttering around clipping the bushes and checking on the little chicks and walking, always wanting to walk. Occasionally she thinks about the bills she has to pay and what kind of paint to buy to paint the chuck-box she built. And now winter is coming and it has begun to rain and soon she is going to want to sit by the fire and knit constantly. She's not a writer. I know. I live inside her head.