August 27, 2003
Out of failure comes insight.
It was a mistake yesterday not to sit and write.
It’s now obvious that I have come to confuse lots of tangential activities with the down and dirty duty to direct dialogue onto the page. Speaking is not writing. Nor thinking, reading, planning, rehearsing, nor note-taking. Most especially, research is not writing. Only the tiresome blank page as it accumulates words and fills to the bottom signifies success for the writer.
Annie Dillard takes walks in the meadow and imagines the landscape behind the wall of her forest studio. Anne Lamott inspects the mole on her back to make sure it is not cancerous again today. And Jane, if she wants to avoid writing, can do just about anything. But the best dodge of all is research. I can interview people, Transcribe interviews. Attend conferences. Print off web pages. And…file it all away for later…when I plan to write it into something important. When I have time.
My bag is full. I have 38 pages from the Reader’s Guide to Periodicals stuffed in there with web search printouts on NOW, the National Organization for Women and all its leaders. Two hours in the ASU library and half a day on the computer at home. I could write a book. Even if I can’t seem to write 300 words.
The clock struck 10:00 just a while ago. And if progress can be measured by learning from my mistakes, I’m progressing. I’m writing. One and a half hours to go. And even if I have to delete it all because it stinks to high heaven, I will write for two solid hours, each day, today, tomorrow, and on. Until I have a decent paragraph that some editor somewhere chooses to print. I will write.
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