Category: observations/thoughts (Page 7 of 14)

Am I Still Curious?

Austin Kleon’s newsletter a week ago had an item about curiosity, and I started to wonder if maybe I’m becoming less curious as I grow older. Part of it grows out of the anxiety of being middle-aged. My life is half over, so I don’t have as much time to wander down wrong paths, and if I explore something new only to find out it wasn’t worth my time, I will have lost that time in pursuit of a dead-end.

Maybe not a dead-end. That feels a bit dramatic. But maybe a detour that has set me off-course?

I suppose this raises the question of what exactly my course is right now. I’m not sure of the answer to that. I do know that where once I would read every article or essay or blog post that caught my fancy, I now tend to delete or pass by those items that don’t already hold a compelling interest for me. My interests are shrinking, basically. I feel like I have to devote my attention only to “those things” (whatever they might be) that are “worth” my time. Worth it, I guess, in the sense that they’ll help me write fantasy stories, or they’ll help me raise my children, or they’ll help me be a better person. And if something doesn’t fit into those paradigms, then I’m likely to skip it.

Not very curious of me, I know.

I suppose this all goes back to the attention economy stuff, and where we choose to focus our attention. I worry that if I focus my attention on the “wrong” stuff, then I’ll end up missing out on the worthy stuff.

But curiosity shouldn’t be so limited, right? How am I to know the wrong stuff from the worthy stuff if I don’t explore? What am I missing out on as a result of this cautious approach to my own attention?

Maybe nothing. Maybe it’s good that I guard my attention. After all, I don’t want my time to be taken up by empty-calorie ephemera or stuff that I ultimately find boring. I want the remaining years of my life to be fruitful and full. But, I also can feel myself calcifying a bit when I turn away from something new that doesn’t fit into the existing paradigm of what I’m already interested in.

I can’t describe it, but in the last couple of years, I can feel my mind closing itself off from the unfamiliar. I’m becoming more and more a creature of habit, and while these habits have made my life more ordered and sustainable, they also have the unintended effect of blocking out the unexpected. I’m getting too used to staying in my lane. I have my interests, and anything that’s not part of those interests gets shunted to the side.

Maybe this is unavoidable. Again, we only have a finite amount of time on earth. At some point, I have to discern what is worth my time and what isn’t.

But I don’t want to become someone so closed off in her elder years that she can’t see beyond the limited scope of her familiar interests and ideas. If I’m going to continue writing into my old age, I need to cultivate curiosity and growth. I can’t let my mind calcify and harden because if I do, I’ll be squeezing out my own creativity and imagination.

Being open and curious will take an act of will. I have to consciously practice it, otherwise the default will be to harden and close myself off from the unfamiliar or seemingly “uninteresting.” I’m not sure how to find a balance between cultivating my own curiosity while also using discretion when it comes to where I focus my attention. Maybe the balance means keeping these two ideas in tension with each other. Maybe there is no “solution” as such, just a continual effort to be both curious and discerning.

Caught Between

What kind of writer am I? My writing heroes are Ray Bradbury, J.R.R. Tolkien, Ursula Le Guin, Astrid Lindgren, C.S. Lewis, Neil Gaiman. Are they “literary” writers or “genre” writers? Serious or pulp? Do they write art or entertainment?

Let’s back up a bit. First, I have always loved fantasy and science fiction, and these two genres have historically been considered “low-brow” by the literature establishment in the U.S.

Tolkien and Lewis in particular had to deal with all kinds of disparaging remarks about their adult fantasy novels from snooty critics.

Le Guin has fared better because she wrote more than just sci-fi/fantasy, and she came to prominence when the genres were gaining more legitimacy. Lindgren gets a pass too because she often wrote for children. Bradbury was a force unto his own. He wrote pulpy stuff but somehow was embraced as literary (sometimes).

But still.

Science fiction and fantasy — speculative fiction — have always maintained a place outside the center of literary esteem. Even now, there feels like a divide between “literary” stuff and “genre” stuff.

I have a subscription to Poets & Writers magazine (that is soon to expire and I won’t be getting a renewal), and the thing that always strikes me when reading it, is the way it seems to ignore nearly every contemporary writer I enjoy reading today: Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Helene Walker, Susanna Clark, Ken Liu, Naomi Novik. Yes, I understand that a large portion of the magazine is devoted to poets, but still, it’s surprising that some of what I consider the best speculative fiction writers today aren’t even mentioned.

Again, there is a divide.

And this divide extends into process and craft and how we should think of our writing. Am I a writer of literature, or am I writer of entertainment? Literature writers are supposed to labor over their craft, write multiple drafts, strive for greatness and make Capital A “Art.” Entertainers churn out their product, write what sells, and scoff at pretensions of “art.” Yes, I know I’m simplifying things, and yes, I know these lines between low-brow and high-brow are gradually blurring, but there’s still this sense (and maybe it’s only in my own mind) that if one wants to write and publish fiction, one must decide.

I hate this choice. I don’t want to make it. I hate the binary between purity (aka art) and business (aka entertainment). This is what happens, though, when I want to sell my stories. When I turn them into commodities, when I participate in the market, then I’m ceding ground to “writing as a business.”

Of course, I want to eat and have a roof over my head, and I want to “make a living” as a writer, so that means I need to think like a business person and regard my stories as “products” to be sold (or intellectual property to be licensed). I want to sell my fiction. I want to market my writing. But I don’t want to feel like I must abandon my creative voice in order to write books that people will buy.

Listening to self-publishing podcasts or reading subreddits for self-published authors can get depressing sometimes because everything seems to be screaming, “Write to market!” Readers want conventional fiction that adheres heavily to tropes (with just a little bit of tweaking to keep it interesting). Readers want vampires and shifters and badass females in their urban fantasy; they want elves and dwarves and dragons in their high fantasy; they want LitRPG, or they want Space Opera, or they want Grimdark. Write to market, write to market, write to market.

It’s not that I don’t like elves and dwarves and dragons in my high fantasy, and it’s not like I don’t want badass ladies kicking butt in my urban fantasy, but I don’t write with these things in mind. I just don’t. I write from my dreams and whatever weird stuff shows up in them; I write from the strange melange of influences I’ve had in my life, everything from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? to Phantastes to Pirates of Dark Waters to Luis Bunuel. I try my best in every story to make it something I would want to read, and I try my best to make it entertaining and also meaningful. But when I write, sometimes my high fantasy doesn’t have elves. Sometimes my urban fantasy has nary a badass lady in sight. It’s just how my brain works, and my imagination. I know I need to keep working at my craft, but I want to believe that I can write both something true to myself as an artist and something that will sell. Am I a fool for thinking so?

I think the divide between art and entertainment is an illusion. All art — even the “literary” stuff that gets featured in Poets & Writers — is meant to entertain. The pulpsters and the literati are all doing the same thing: spinning yarns to enchant an audience. I was heartened recently when reading Le Guin’s collection of essays, The Language of the Night. One of the essays dealt with this false dichotomy between art and entertainment:

“Therefore I totally oppose the notion that you can put Art over here on a pedestal, and Entertainment down here in a clown suit. Art and Entertainment are the same thing, in that the more deeply and genuinely entertaining a work is, the better art it is. To imply that Art is something heavy and solemn and dull, and Entertainment is modest but jolly and popular, neo-Victorian idiocy at its worst.

(from “The Stone Ax and the Muskoxen”)

I think it helps to remember Shakespeare. His plays were popular. They were entertainment for everybody, from the lowest dregs of London society to the very highest of royalty. And yet, we watch Shakespeare now and consider his work High Art. The same plays. The same lines. Entertainment and art.

Thus, the choice is an illusion.

I’ve never set out to write a story that I didn’t think would be entertaining. I might have failed in the execution of a story, but I never failed in the intention behind it.

There is only the work. There is only the hope that in writing my stories and spinning my yarns, I will make something “deeply and genuinely entertaining,” and thus, make a work of art.

What kind of writer am I?

Perhaps the answer is trite, but it remains true. I am myself. I don’t have to choose.

Leaving Twitter

It’s about time.

I mean, it’s about time I left Twitter because I really don’t use it to communicate. I’m a lurker. I read the stream of stuff that shows up when I log on — other people’s stuff — but I don’t post anything. Weirdly, since I really enjoy blogging.

But I don’t enjoy posting things on Twitter. Or Facebook. Or Instagram. Or whatever. I’m too shy. (Again, weirdly. Because I do share stuff here and in my newsletter. I have no idea why blogging is easier for me, but it is.)

It’s also “about time” because it’s about time. I waste a lot of time reading what other people are writing on Twitter. I waste a lot of it thinking about the cool things people are doing on Twitter: all the books they’re releasing, all the clever ideas they are having, all the funny stories they are sharing. I read Twitter and then I get down on myself for not releasing as many books or having so many clever ideas or sharing so many funny stories.

I don’t want to waste time. I want to write more stories. I want to write more thoughts on fantasy literature (hello, newsletter) or my writing process or what I’m reading, but I want this writing to be long-form, to be personal, to be less of a race to popularity.

Also, I have a fundamental antipathy to social media. I signed up for these sites years ago because of the promise that they would help me connect with people or whatever. And I can’t deny that they didn’t help a little. I met cool people at the TCM Film Fest via Twitter.

But I didn’t make any lasting connections. Maybe that’s on me; maybe I didn’t use Twitter the right way. Frankly, I don’t think it matters. Right or wrong, I haven’t found it to be beneficial.

I’ve wasted a lot of time reading other people’s tweets. I don’t post my own stuff very often, mostly because I’m shy, even on the internet. I don’t like sharing little bon mots. I’m glad other people do and that they’re good at it, but it’s not for me.

I like blogging, I like my newsletter. I’m gonna try a micro.blog and see how that goes.

But I’m deleting Twitter. Probably in a day or two. I should have deleted it a long time ago. I think I was afraid of doing it, as if somehow having a Twitter account was necessary for reaching my readers.

But it’s not. It’s not necessary, at least not for me. For me, it was a negative experience. Not that I didn’t have fun reading stuff on Twitter, but it caused all these residual negatives that I’m better off getting rid of it.

Maybe it’s easier to be on Twitter, maybe it’s safer. Less risky. Build a platform the way everyone else is doing it. Maybe I’m a fool for getting off the big social media sites (though my husband will continue to maintain my Facebook page because he likes to… I forget I have Facebook most of the time).

But I’m tired of the time-suck. I’m tired of the way social media makes me feel like I’m in middle school again. These are my hang-ups, not anyone else’s, so if other people love Twitter or Instagram or whatever, that’s great. If people feel that they need to stay on these sites professionally, also great.

But I don’t want to anymore. I’m done.

Ordinary Time

After Christmastime, the church enters what’s known as Ordinary Time, and I feel like my own life this month has entered a kind of “ordinary time” that is very welcome after the ordeals of Christmas and New Year’s.

I don’t mean the normal busy flurry of activity that precedes Christmas or the merriment and unstructured time of the Christmas Octave. I mean my personal ordeals, which included catching a cold that then led to a wicked cough, which then led to back pain and sciatica in my right leg and a stint in the emergency room, and an MRI, and a spinal injection to help ease the pain, and now here I am on nerve medicine, muscle relaxers, and ibuprofen trying to manage the pain and get on with life.

And I am getting on with life. On these days when the kids are all in school, and I can sit at my desk and work, and the house is (relatively) in order, and I know what needs to be done and I have time (and health, enough) to do it, I am content. This is that ordinary time I referenced above, that time when the days pass uneventfully but with satisfaction: a day well done, a life unremarkable but nevertheless joyful.

Weirdly, despite my continued leg pain, I am joyful. I don’t know if it’s the effects of my new Panda Planner (which I can’t believe I’ve become a “planner person,” but I must say, having used the Panda Planner for almost three weeks, I can feel a difference in my organization, productivity, and well-being), or if my joy comes from facing so much physical pain that I’ve had to cling to whatever happiness and peace I can muster in order to stay sane and not despair, or maybe it’s just the medicines I’m taking that are blissing me out, but whatever the cause of the joy, I am here for it.

Maybe it’s the fact that for the past two and a half weeks, I’ve been awake at 6:30 a.m. due to the leg pain, and I’ve used those early morning hours to walk slowly around the house and listen to the Liturgy of the Hours. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time someone has found joy in early morning prayer. Saints and monks can testify to that.

I don’t know if it’s a middle-age thing (since I am officially middle-aged), but I can’t get over how grateful I am for the experience of “ordinary time.” Habit, predictability, the incremental everyday work that builds into satisfying accomplishment: I like the rhythm of it. I like that things seem ordered. Yes, of course, I still have the chaos that comes with raising happy, wild, volatile young children, but that chaos is mitigated by the ordinary beats of ordinary time. There are no big events or holidays ahead, no trips or happenings to plan for. Yes, I still have deadlines and stress, but for this brief respite in January, I can just let myself settle into the regularities of ordinary life.

It’s the ebb and flow. I love the excitement of Christmastime, but now I love the quiet of Ordinary. We need both to have a balanced life.

Blizzards and the Present Moment

We are in the midst of a winter storm here in Michigan, though my side of the state has avoided the blizzard designation for now. Instead, we’re in “winter storm warning” mode, praying that our power stays on and the roads are clear for Christmas Eve.

I’ve been trying really hard lately to live in the present moment and not worry about the past or the future, but weather events like these invite a kind of necessity to think ahead. If our power goes out, what do we do? How much gas do we have for the generator? Do we have enough food and water? Do we have batteries for flashlights?

When a big storm hits, we need to plan ahead, so living only in the present moment is risky. It’s foolhardy to never prepare for the future.

I don’t want to be caught off-guard, so I spend a lot of time thinking about the future and making contingency plans. In some ways, I’m being wise. If our power goes out later tonight, we’ll be glad we bought that generator.

But in other ways, my worry about the future is a hindrance. It not only makes me anxious and leads me to catastrophize, but it also makes me miss what’s happening in the here and now.

A few weeks ago, my youngest child was in the midst of a tantrum and I was at my wit’s end. I wanted him to stop screaming, but I couldn’t skip through the tantrum and jump to the calm that always comes in the end. I had to endure the screaming and flailing and acting out. I wanted it to be the future, but I was stuck in the present. We are all stuck in the present like this: stuck in a moment of drudgery or pain or annoyance or helplessness. What we want is to skip ahead. Get to the future. Leave the bad stuff behind.

But I can’t skip over my child’s tantrum, or an illness, or a snowstorm. I have to endure it. And that means I can either think about the future when everything will be better (I hope), or I can accept the present moment in all its agony and move beyond endurance to something approaching an embrace.

This doesn’t mean I’m happy about my child’s tantrum, or the fact that we might lose power from cyclone winds, or whatever other maladies befall me during my lifetime, but even in the midst of these maladies, I’m still here. I’m still alive. Living in the present moment is about living. I’m not embracing the bad as if it’s good, but I’m embracing the fact that I’m alive.

And being alive is good, even in the midst of moments when it’s hard.

It’s a bit hard right now with my whole family cooped up in the house while the winds whip through the trees and snow swirls in all directions. The kids are getting cabin fever, and I’m still worried about what the roads will be like tomorrow for Christmas Eve. The future is making me anxious, but so is the present.

And even though it’s hard, I’ve got to embrace this present moment. It’s frustrating. I’m nervous about the winds. But there are still small moments, present moments, that I can embrace. The sweetness of honey in my peppermint tea. The glow of lights on the Christmas tree. The birds gathered around the feeder, their muted colors of gray and brown, their bright colors of red and white all a flurry of wings and beaks, swarming and scattering the sunflower seeds like tiny pebbles on the hard, smooth surface of the stark-white snow.

I don’t know what tonight will bring, but for this present moment, I’m content.

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