Right now, if you email my professional email (or respond to this newsletter), you’ll get a reply that reads “This account/my being are operating at summer speed during the months of July and August and so will be slower than usual in responding to emails. Thanks in advance for your patience.”
And that speed is indeed slow: in my replies, in the speed of this newsletter (truly, thanks for your patience), which I have tried to write many times over the past month, and in my body, which is currently getting through my first official case of Covid1 (whomp whomp). I’d composed the above message, this slow-down plan—that auto-reply, a shunning of social media that has yet to happen, a closing of my books—to make space for the novel.
Yet work on my novel has not even begun, an unfortunate recurring theme of this year. My novel notebooks are still in the boxes from when we moved back into our apartment post-flood repairs. Last night I dug out my planner from the same boxes and found it left on this page, the week of June 3rd.
It’s the Thursday and Friday days above that made my summer feel fast, too. Those training days were the start of what I came to call the J-O-B2, and which I’d planned to work for the month of June only (so I could, you know, devote myself to the novel for the remainder of the summer, best laid plans yadda yadda yadda), which turned into my loving the J-O-B so much I came back for another 2-week term in July, and missing my coworkers and the gig—pedagogical and writing support for a summer academic program for teens—terribly during the two week break I took from it. Those two weeks were truly weeks off, too, packed with family birthdays and wedding anniversaries and a last minute trip to Seattle (record haul confesssion incoming).
During these months, I felt far from my writing self, as if inhabiting a sort of alter ego, a life path that I did not take but got to experience for a trial period. I got dressed differently, commuted with my little coffee tumbler and had one of those work lanyards and coworkers and best of all, a boss! This will sound insane to those of you who work under bosses, but I cannot stress how wonderful it was to have clear directions and purpose that did not come from myself for the first time in a long while.
When I took this job, I worried that this sort of alter-ego inhabiting would make me depressed, would only make me desperate to return to the writing—it was a 9-5 situation that I realized I could stay in forever and be good at that led me to getting my MFA and pursuing writing full time many years ago—or cut me off from the parts of myself I need to access to finish the book, but what I also felt during this J-O-B, this break from myself as boss, was competent and useful and surprisingly, entirely myself, despite not writing a lick of fiction. I fell asleep easily. I got along well with people. I didn’t work when I wasn’t at work, which I cannot say I do with my fiction or my personal teaching which keeps me up at night and haunts my showers and dogwalks and hours when my brain should be at rest. As for the writing itself? I felt, for the first time maybe ever, that I would get back to it when I got back to it.
This sort of ease—undoubtedly aided by filling up those income coffers by taking on an extra round of J-O-B—was unexpected to say the least, and just what I needed this summer, to reset that speed clock that tells me I must always go go go go on the novel, that says my only identity is as a fiction writer. Maybe, once this hell-disease has left my body and I return to being my own boss, I’ll be a better one to myself.
A Different Sort of Speed Round:
Fall classes are live, including a rare chance to work on revision with me in person in Manhattan this fall starting September 10th. Enrollment for that one closes at the end of this month. There’s also a seminar on short story collections and my intensive on novel openings. Details are all gathered here.
Though my travel mode is usually 70% inability to relax, this round I enjoyed my vacation with my family (except for the afternoon I got sunscreen in my eye, that was bad, though I still had fun even though I could not open my eye for hours). We bought ten plus records in Seattle (yes, more Billy Joel, also the Portishead and Tom Petty I’ve been looking for in every record shop). This is why our suitcases were overweight and I ended up pulling out a travel yoga mat and a bag weighted with crystals and seashells out and carrying it on. None of this seemed important given we flew during the great airline disaster of the summer. We did make it home, just 6 plus hours behind schedule. I was rewarded by being on the side of the full moon all night. She was very good, soothing company.
Loved this book, which I bought at the really lovely Elliott Bay Book Company.
Pulled a when in
RomeSeattle, and finally tried matcha. It tasted like grass to me, no, not that kind, the other kind.June update: xrays weren’t as expected, so she needs another month of rest. No one is happy about this. Summer of patience.
Will I ever really leave Instagram for focus reasons or will I miss Read Receipts too much?
Talk Soon,
Danielle
Last winter I am pretty sure I had it, mildly overall, though I could not get it to show up on a home or PCR test, it left me with a really inflammed body that I dealt with the fallout of for months. Even when presenting mildly, this thing sucks for sure. That said, I’m doing fine and hope to be in the clear by my birthday next week, to return to the world.
There could be a whole essay about the Freaky Friday level role swap my husband and I did during these months, with him home with kids and crreatures, and me being the daily commuter. I really can appreciate his hatred of eating the same sensible lunch every day, and how many damn bags it seems to require to be in the world on a daily basis.
Love this and find it super specifically helpful as per usual. Sending good recovery (and patience) wishes for all in your house who can use ‘em! ❤️