Writing (or, the art of procrastination)
Being a writer sounds so glamorous, doesn’t it? I read about other writers, and their lives sound so artistic and compelling. So highbrow and gratifying. And then I remember that I’m a writer too. My life isn’t glamorous. It isn’t artistic or compelling. It’s a revolving cycle of husband, kids, laundry, kids, animals, husband, friends, family, more laundry, more cats, more kids, and lately, a huge quantity of double-shredded hardwood mulch. The real excitement and heart-quickening drama, the ecstatic epiphanies, the tearful satisfaction–well, it all happens inside my head. Which is good, because if it all happened out in public, I would drive everyone around me crazy.
People always ask where I get my ideas, how do I come up with stuff, where does it all come from. In one of Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s books, there was a character who was a writer, and when someone asked him that, he was horribly tempted to say, “A warehouse outside of Tulsa.” The short answer, for me, is: I sit around and think a lot. I just think about whatever I’m writing or need to write, and think about how it has to go. If I’m really stuck, I go do something mindless, like fold laundry, clean the kitchen, or lately, spread a huge amount of double-shredded hardwood mulch. That repetitive action does seem to help clear my mind and let my thoughts flow. But often I’m just in my office chair, head back, eyes closed, and if a child comes up, I say, “Shh, Mama’s working.” And then I go back to my nap or whatever. Being a writer is also useful if I’m at an important, meaningful lecture, or in the middle of a deep and relevant film, and I’m thinking about what I should do with my backyard, or remember that one of the cats has to go to vet, or suddenly think of a favorite article of clothing and wonder whatever happened to it–and then someone asks me something and I have no idea what just happened. A self-deprecating smile and a few mumbled words about working out a difficult plot point just does wonders.
A longer answer is that just about everything I do, see, read, experience, hear about–it all informs and shapes my writing. Everything is an influence–bits of overheard conversations (I love to eavesdrop in public–it’s actually kind of a problem), movies, magazines, stuff my kids say, my own reactions to stuff my friends and family do–everything gets thrown in the old psyche, and then it gets woven into my writing, whether I want it to or not.
There are things I read just to get into a certain voice, to get my mind working in a certain rhythm. Different blogs, different books–I reread them over and over and then my own writing is shaped a bit by their rhythms or humor or structure. But when I read my stuff, it still all seems like me.
I reread Sundays at Tiffany’s a few days ago. I hadn’t seen it since I’d had one last chance to work on the final draft, which I finished on the morning of my wedding last year to Paul the Wonder Husband. It was very interesting to read it again. It all blends together nicely, I think, but there are certain sentences and paragraphs, certain turns of phrase and ideas, that I recognize as being solely Jim, 100% Patterson, and very familiar and similar to how he talks. Especially the male characters, their voices and thoughts, because everyone always thinks my male characters are not very guylike. Jim had to guy them up a lot. And there are little chunks I recognize as being really me, my voice, my thinking, my turn of phrase, especially some of the humor or snappy comebacks. (And then there are a few sentences that I would swear were put in by an editor, because they don’t sound like either of us.) What’s odd is that there’s a great deal of the book where I can’t tell if it’s one or the other. I sort of remember writing it, but not exactly, I think it was Jim’s idea but maybe I did something with it–it’s really a blend. I don’t remember who did what. It’s both weird and kind of neat at the same time.
And now I should really get back to work.
Gabrielle