Peg Kerr's Journal

She sat perched on the edge of the chair, fidgeting a little, in the well-appointed anteroom, which was decorated with tasteful paintings on the wall and an aquarium stocked with colorful tropical fish. She knew that the fish were there to keep people from becoming nervous, but even knowing that didn't help enough. After a short wait, she was ushered into his office. A junior flunky politely offered her a choice of soda or water or coffee, but she refused. She didn't think she could have raised the cup to her lips without the trembling in her fingers becoming totally obvious.

There were pleasantries at first. She expected that, and did her best to sound natural as she replied to his polite inquiries about the day job, the family, a recent vacation. Perhaps if she just pretended to be confident, she could finesse this interview without getting too embarrassed. The trouble was, she didn't think that she could convincingly assume an air of insouciance, particularly when all she felt was sheer terror at having to face him and admit the truth. Then he leaned forward a little, looking at the papers on the desk in front of him, and she felt a frisson of dread.

"I was so pleased with your progress the last time we visited," he told her. "The Wild Swans was--well, it made me very proud." And she believed him. That, perversely, was what made facing him now so awful. He paused, looking at her expectantly, and she realized he was giving her a chance to respond. She murmured a rather disjointed thanks, something to the effect that she was quite proud of it, too. She hoped he wouldn't think she sounded like a ninny. She also hoped he wouldn't see how wretched admitting this made her feel now.

"So tell me," he said, picking up an elegant fountain pen and holding it poised over the papers in front of him. "What have you been working on since our last meeting?"

She looked down at her hands, clenched together tightly in her lap. "I was--I had started another novel. About--about an ice palace. The St. Paul Winter Carnival ice palace, you know. The central character is the architect designing it. And it's--well. Well. About--about summer and winter magic." She cursed herself inwardly for her own stammering.

He waited, but she volunteered nothing more. "That sounds promising. It could be quite interesting, indeed." Another pause. "But you are not finished with it yet?"

Slowly, she shook her head. "No, I'm not." She heard the leather of his seat creak as he sat back, looking at her. She couldn't bring herself to look up to meet his eyes as she added faintly, "I--I don't think I'm going to finish it."

The pause that followed was very long indeed. "I see," he said. Was he angry, she wondered anxiously? Was he surprised? She couldn't tell. She could feel her palms starting to sweat. "Then--what are you working on now, Ms. Kerr?"

She could hear the faint ticking of the elegant clock on his desk. How was it possible to hear that over the thundering of her own heartbeat? Couldn't she just keel over out of sheer nerves and end the agony of this interview that way? She took a deep breath. "I'm not working on anything right now," she said, surprising herself with the steadiness of her own voice. Fleetingly, with an enormous effort, she finally raised her gaze to meet his. "I don't think I'm going to write any more novels, sir." Inwardly, she cringed. There. She had said it.

"No more novels?" Slowly, he turned the pen over in his fingers. Tap. Tap. "May I ask why you do not think you will be writing any more novels?"

She opened her mouth and closed it again as a wave of shame swept over her. Tears prickled the corners of her eyes. Oh, no. No. I swore I would not cry. "It's--it's just so hard. It's very difficult." She cleared her throat.

"Difficult." The very flatness of his voice made the inadequacy of the excuse clear.

"I'm just--well, I'm just so busy. Ferrying the girls around. Keeping up with everything. And I try to write--I try to write, and nothing comes." There were other reasons, of course. The frittering away of her time on the internet. The time spent reading junk. Why mention it? She already looked stupid enough as it was.

"But you try."

"Well. I did. I did, for a long time. Eventually--eventually, I stopped trying, you see."

Tap. Tap. "If you do not write your novels, Ms. Kerr," he said with infinite gentleness, "no one else will write them for you."

His very gentleness made her feel even worse. I will not cry. "I know that, sir," she ground out through gritted teeth.

He pulled the calendar before him forward and named a future date. "I will see you for your next report then."

"But--but I won't have anything to report," she said desperately. "I told you. I've stopped writing novels."

But he was already writing her name down on the paper, and he raised an eyebrow. "We shall see, Ms. Kerr. We shall see."

From The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon:

It was a clear, moonlit night a little after the tenth of the Eighth Month. Her majesty, who was residing in the Empress's Office, sat by the edge of the veranda while Ukon no Naishi played the flute for her. The other ladies in attendance sat together, talking and laughing; but I stayed by myself, leaning against one of the pillars between the main hall and the veranda.

'Why so silent,' said Her Majesty. 'Say something. It is sad when you do not speak.'

'I am gazing into the autumn moon,' I replied.

'Ah yes,' she remarked. 'That is just what you should have said.'

Such a simple little scene, deftly sketched in just a few paragraphs. One can see it--the moonlit garden, the ladies gathered, talking softly, the flutist, the Empress, and Sei Shonagon, looking up at the moon with a melancholic air. The ladies described--once living, breathing people--have been dead and dust now for a thousand years, and yet the words on the page immediately brings them to life for us again.

Shakespeare understood this to the core, and examined it at length in the sonnets. From the ending of Sonnet 18:


. . . Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this [the sonnet] and this gives life to thee.
.

I read a story years ago--and damn me for not remembering the title or author--which started, very simply, by describing a man, a simple laborer, who died in his sleep one night. The rest of the story is a straightforward account of how his presence is erased from the world. He had no children. His simple possessions are sold and scattered to the winds. The story tells of a gathering of friends twelve years later, eating dinner at a common inn. In the course of the conversation, one says to the other, "We went there with that fellow we worked with long ago--what was his name, John Josephson--" and the conversation goes on from there. And that the narrator tells us was the last time that John Josephson's name was ever spoken by another human being.

The years speed on, and then another forty years or so later the narrator focuses on something, a written record--I don't remember what it was, a written ledger, or a Bible in a church. There is a storm (or was it a fire?) and the book with John Josephson's name (or was it his signature?) is destroyed. The page is soaked, and the ink runs, or perhaps it is burned. There are five letters left in his name, then three. Then one. Then the last letter is gone, as is John Josephson from all human memory.

[Anyone remember that story??? Title and author???]

I have been thinking about the ice palace book. Well--sort of squinting at it out of the corner of my eyes without trying to look at it directly. I have been wondering, rather gloomily, whether I should just admit facts and remove all reference to it from my user profile page. I haven't worked on it in months. It was going well, and then it wasn't going well, and then it all seemed to dry up. I do not know whether I made a mistake in talking about it in this journal--did that somehow suck all the creative juices out of it, keeping me from actually writing it? Is it just that I am so busy with the kids and my job, and the fact that I am not writing is an inevitable reflection of the busy nature of my life, or am I just making lame excuses for laziness, lack of talent? Am I not working on the book because I am depressed, or am I depressed because I am not working on the book? Screw the cause: I am very very very depressed, and I haven't been working on the book. Not for a long time.

And yet, and yet . . .

I am not entirely divorced from it, it is not entirely dead for me, because I am struggling with the same things Solveig is struggling with. I always knew that there was much going on in the book about permanence, impermanence. Solveig is horrified by Rolf's quest for immortality, but she understands it, too, because, like Jack, she wants to create something that will last. I type insurance paperwork for a living, and she designs shopping malls; like me, she sure as hell isn't getting what she needs from her day job. She gets irritable--just as I do--by those who try to convince her that since she's mothering a child, she should accept that as her gift to the future. No, Solveig says, and I say--I want to do something, make something, that will last. We both want a life's work that will matter, long term, that will stand for years to come. She ponders this as she designs an ice palace which will melt, but which she hopes will live in memory, just as I ponder my writing. I have my paper journals lined up in neat rows in my office. What will happen to them when I die? I have thought about this--Rob will have the right to read them if he survives me. The girls can read them after they have reached the age of twenty-one, and they will inherit them. In my deepest anxious craving to be remembered, to matter, somehow, I wonder if they will ever be read by anyone else, people who never have the chance to meet me. Will the words be interesting--enough to last? Will anyone give a damn?

What do I have to say for the ages? Will my life be remembered years, decades, even centuries later, like Sei Shonagon, like Shakespeare, like Jane Austen, like Tolkien, because of the words that I wrote--words about my own life, or my fictional creation? Or will I be erased inexorably by the remorseless, relentless, hand of Time?

I do not know what to do about the ice palace book. I seem paralyzed about it, and when I permit myself to think beyond the blackness of my depression--which seems just about impossible these days--I am in a rage, absolutely fucking furious at myself for being so blocked.

The fury does not help. It is not a spur to action; it just makes me feel worse, if I possibly could.

But beyond that, even, there is still something there about the book that is connected to me, to my deepest concerns, so I guess it's not dead yet--even if I can't figure out how to grasp it and shape it and make it work--or if I can't somehow force myself to do the hard slogging work to bring it into being. Whatever the cause.

God help me.

(Or maybe I should just switch to sonnets.)

This post has several roots. First, I have been feeling definite unease over the fact that, let's be honest, I just have not been working on the ice palace book. For months. I was pecking at it, and then my computer crashed last winter, and there was Christmas, and then taxes (which are STILL not done; don't blame me, blame Rob) and the end of school and karate and oh, all sorts of things. I let one thing after another crowd into my life and squeeze out the fiction writing.

I have talked in this journal about my fear that I have no more books in me, that I will never write fiction again. I wondered, for a number of years, whether I could still consider myself to be a writer.

This came up recently because I had this exchange of comments with epicyclical. Cassie was asking whether her readers knew what they wanted to be when they grew up, so to speak. I said that I didn't know, which at age 45, I found most depressing. Cassie answered "But you are a writer -- just what everyone seems to want to be!"

And I let that comment sit for days while I thought about it. I couldn't bring myself to even reply to it, because something inside of me felt the honest thing to say was to protest, "You don't understand. I don't think I'm a writer anymore." And I didn't want to say that because a) everyone would think I was fishing for ego-boo and b) everyone would think I was crazy.

I might have just let things sit without ever answering Cassie, but then I posted the request that lurkers introduce themselves. And I got many lovely, lovely responses, but I was struck by how many said, in effect, it's so cool to read the journal of a real working writer. And once again I'm haunted by the feeling that I'm giving people a false impression.

Folks, whatever you think a working writer is, I'm worried that I ain't it. I have not made a dime selling fiction for several years now. I have not worked on the book for months. And yes, I find it difficult to admit this, because I wanted to be working on the book (but not enough to actually do the work, apparently) and I wanted to be considered "a real writer."

Or do I? And what does that mean to me?

I have thought a lot about this in the past week. And I have come to several tentative conclusions, and I realize that still I have several outstanding questions.

I realized that I was operating on the understanding that if I wasn't working on fiction, right now, continuously (and selling it), this somehow negated my past success. It "undid" my status as a writer. I had to ask myself, did this make sense? Do I cease to consider Harper Lee a writer because she wrote "just" one book (To Kill a Mockingbird), a masterpiece at that? What about Walter M. Miller, Jr., who only had A Canticle for Lebowitz published during his lifetime? Do I not consider them to be writers anymore? What is the sell-by date by which a writer's "writerlyness" expires? A year? Two years? Five years? A decade?

No, I realized. I still think of Harper Lee and Walter M. Miller, Jr. as writers, and I always will. I have had two books published. By the same reasoning, then, I have the same right to consider myself a writer, too.

But what about the fact that I'm not writing?

Well, duh, you point out. You're writing now, Peg. You write faithfully in your LiveJournal, and your words are read eagerly by more than a person or two: the lurkers who spoke up proved that.

And that's true, too. All right, so, I'm a writer. And I'm writing now, in the journal/essay format. Journaling was the first type of writing I ever did, probably, and it has been the most consistent type of writing I have done across my lifetime.

Apparently, the problem boils down to the fact that I'm not presently a writer of fiction right now.

So how do I feel about that?

Frankly, I really don't know. I am not entirely sure why I have stopped, and whether it is permanent. Is it due to depression? Is it lack of willpower? Some character flaw? Is this just the season of life that I am in, that I am a very conscientious parent in an intense period of motherhood? Sandra Day O'Connor, for heaven sakes, took five years off her career to raise her children. Why can't I do the same?

The difficult thing for me to admit is that I am not entirely sure that I want to write fiction any more. Why else am I not writing it? And yet, how hard it is to admit this, when so many perfectly nice people read my journal "to learn what it's like to be a real writer." Will you chide me for false pretenses? Will you denounce me as an imposter?

Will you demand that I give the necklace back?

To sum up: All right, I am a writer. But I am not sure whether I am a working fiction writer. I am not sure I want to be a working fiction writer anymore.

But if not . . . then what the hell is it that I want to be???

This has been a painful and scary entry to write. I have gone back and forth over whether or not I should enable comments. I want to state as clearly as I can that I am not leaving them on because I am begging for reassurances. I am 45 years old and I know that for my own mental health, I have to base my idea of myself on what I think of myself, rather than what other people think about me. But after long thought, I decided that if my intent was to speak truth in this entry, then it made sense to give people a chance to respond.

More to follow later, but I have to get the girls to bed now.

Tonight, the head instructor of the girls' karate school, Mr. Sidner, was testing for his fourth degree black belt, so Rob and I and the girls went to watch the exam. It was the first time we've seen a black belt exam, for all the black belts testing region-wide. The whole thing lasted about three hours. I found it fascinating (the girls were interested, for the most part, although Delia did get restless toward the end). In the defensive section, Mr. Sidner did one of defenses from a wheel chair, taking out his attacker using only his arms. Quite convincingly, too.

As I watched the students kick and punch, I thought about something kijjohnson said once, that the practice of writing should become like the practice of karate: if you want to become good, you have to practice your forms every day. I want to study karate, but I will have to wait until the girls are out of daycare, and so we have a little more margin in the budget. I thought about discipline, watching those intricate forms, the jumps, the kicks, the looks of intensity on faces, young and old. My discipline in terms of my writing life has been nonexistent for the last several years. I am not sure whether motherhood is a sufficient excuse or not. In my blacker moments, I think it is not, that I am flunking being a writer. But I have been trying, to get my life back to the point where I can give the writing the discipline I need, by cutting other extraneous stuff out of my life. I'm almost there--but I sit down in front of the keyboard and . . . .nothing.

Architecture intimidates me. It intimidates the hell out of me. For my first book, I had to learn about jewelry making. I don't know why that didn't seem quite so scary. Perhaps because I was describing Renaissance jewelry making, and I didn't think there would be scads of people who knew enough about the subject to tsk tsk if I got it wrong. The second book got more intimidating: I was trying to get into the mindset of gay Manhattan subculture, and what the hell did I know about that? I worried incessantly whether or not I got it right, but . . . I dunno . . . there didn't seem to me to be anything technical about it.

Architecture, now. Mathematical and precise, with an engineering mindset which is foreign to me--is that what's paralyzing me? Or is it simply Jack the mysterious who is the problem, Jack the maddening, the elusive, who in my low moments I have started to dub Jack-the-jerk?

What is my beginning form here? What is my target to kick and punch? And should I have been acting as if I have been testing for my belt all along, and I haven't even known it? When are they going to inform me that they're kicking me out of the writer's karate school for lack of progress?

Or for self-absorbed navel-gazing instead of writing, for that matter. Yeesh.

Minicon was a really remarkable experience for me this year.

( We decided to stay at the hotel this year, at least on Friday and Saturday night. )

( I stopped by the dealer's room and visited Elise's jewelry table. )

( I hung out with friends on Friday night and enjoyed some good conversations ).

( The next morning we learned the ugly truth )

( I went off to my panels. )

( After dinner )

( The Ice Palace Conspiracy revealed. )

Have been thinking about the ice palace book, and why I haven't been working on it. Figured some stuff out today. I found myself thinking, with more than a twinge of impatience, that I seem to be able to come up with more reasons not to be writing than any writer I know. ( More )

This is awfully discouraging.

Peg

210 words. I think I'm going to total up all these teeny tiny little scenes this weekend and see my total word count. Must also do reading up on architecture.

Jack still feels less accessible.

There's going to be an ice palace at the St. Paul Winter Carnival this year! Oh boy! Golden research opportunity!

*Happy dances off stage left to deliver kiss to new laptop*

Cheers,
Peg

The author in the schools gig went well. I visited 5 classrooms, talked for 50 minutes in each, and my throat is killing me, but the students were impressive. Much more lively and interested, and with much more intelligent and imaginative responses than the students whose classroom I visited last year.

( After I'd finished that, I got together with Inga, my architect expert. )

Cheers,
Peg

Last night, instead of writing a scene, I wrote down in my brainstorming file all my fears about the book, the things I'm afraid I'll do wrong, or that I won't be able to figure out, the ways I'm afraid it'll be a cliche. I did this in hopes that by exposing them to sunlight, I would make them shrivel up, have less power over me, so that I could get back to writing. Anyway, it helped to write them down, just so that I could set them aside.

Wrote 327 words in this morning's session.

Onward and upward.

Peg