Writer-in-Residence

Hello, again, world.

Things are getting into full swing around here...including working, doing my internship, and reading large volumes of classwork. It's disheartening to climb into bed less than an hour after you get home from work, and just get up the next morning to do it again, but you know, that's life. I am reminded of the fact that I am not a mother, or a wife, and that I am blessed to have only myself to take care of. That cannot be said for a lot of people doing the same things that I am doing right now. So it's all good...well, except for one little thing.

I realized today, for perhaps the bazillionth time, that I am a sensitive artist. I wrote two scripts for Parable, and Scott liked my first one better than my second one. I liked the second one better, and found myself quite deflated that I was unable to communicate via writing what I can communicate well via talking. I like to think of myself as an artist, a writer, but I'm not sure that's actually true. Maybe my true art form is verbal communication (and it's a large body of work, am I right?!). But I am frustrated by that. I see words, I've seen words, on the page since I was a little girl, and I've thought to myself, I can do that. And there are times when I can. But those times are fleeting, and when I see something that's truly well-written (see Scott's Parable series for the past few weeks, knock- you-down-at-your-knees-good), I am jealous, wishing that I was able to do that. I have always said to myself and to others that I just don't care as much about the end product, that the process of writing is what's important to me. But I want what I'm writing to be life-changing, the way my life changes when I read Madeline L'Engle's Crosswicks journals, or when I read C.S. Lewis or Anne Lamott.

I wrote a play script last year. An entire script, 2.5 hours in length, in production time. There are nuggets in it that are priceless moments, beautiful and composed. But the fact remains that the script sits dormant on my computer, and copies of it are shoved in my coat closet along with my cleaning supplies and extra batteries. I cannot bear to read it, cannot bear to go back to mine for the good parts, because I don't want to admit that it's not perfect. It is a part of me, and as much as Steven King says that editing should mean that you cut 20% off of your final draft and that you have to do it even if it feels like killing your babies, I refuse. That doesn't make me an artist, or a writer. That makes me a stubborn perfectionist. It should be perfect when I write it. I shouldn't have to go back. If it's not perfect when I write it, then I'm not a writer. Period.

That's the way it goes in my head. It's a crazy place up there.