I had a goal to read 40 books while at Djerassi, because I normally like to raid the Alumni Library and read at least a poetry book a day. But I wasn’t reading as much poetry as I was memoir and fiction. And that’s okay. I ended up finishing 30 books in 28 days, so I’ll take that. I read some REALLY AMAZING books, and you can read my reviews on Goodreads. Some of my favorites were Townie by Andre Dubus III, My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem, and Living with a Wild God by Barbara Ehrenreich.
My main goal for my time at Djerassi was simple: get the memoir I’ve been working on to a point where I am ready to send it out. I have been working on it for a long time; so long, in fact, that my life keeps changing and sometimes when I go back to revise it there are sections that no longer make sense in the narrative. With the gift of 28 days, I decided I wanted to: cut the memoir from 95K words to 75K, remove some repetitive narration, and create a new structure.
To create a new structure, I had to first work on the timeline that I’ve been trying to recreate for about 10 years now. I have been gathering a list of events for each month of every year since my grandparents were born, to try to piece together the timeframe of the implosion (okay, explosion) of my nuclear family. So I spent a good deal of time studying documents to verify these events.
Then I wrote two brand new first chapters.
Then I cut three existing chapters.
Then I worked on patching holes in chapters 3-7.
In short, I got a WHOLE LOT accomplished.
I still have perhaps 40 more working hours to add a bit more glue, including some details I didn’t have access to while I was away (my mother’s CIA and FBI files).
Today was a special treat. I got to speak to an upper division creative nonfiction class, where I started with the presentation called “100 memoirs in 10 minutes,” a run-through of the 100 memoirs I have read in the past few years, ranging from Conroy’s Stop Time published in 1977 to Brian Turner’s My Life as a Foreign Country published in 2014. The students were engaged, thoughtful, and so generous and kind.
Then I did a radio interview at the campus station, where Taylor asked me many questions about traveling and writing.
This has been such a wonderful day and I’m so thankful to Dr. Elizabyth Hiscox and the entire faculty at Western for inviting me to visit with the students. I feel truly enriched and inspired.
I can’t even begin to tell you all the things I’ve sucked at this year. It’s only May 13 and I’ve already failed at: 1. training for a marathon (I dropped to the half), 2. keeping a writing schedule (I only wrote for 15 hours total spring semester), and 3. getting estimates (I need someone to paint my house, please? Don’t make me beg? I’ve left, like, 20 voicemails).
Lucky for me, I know some over-achievers who take pity on me. One is my friend Kaylee, who recently sent me an article about a book that turned out to be the perfect book to start reading on Day 1 of my 30-Day Challenge to Stop Sucking So Much.
It’s called Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, by Mason Currey, and it describes the creative lives of 161 people including artists, authors, poets, and composers. I’m really enjoying reading it because it displays such a wide variety of routines. You have your morning people and your night owls. You have those who work for 8 hours and those who tap out at 2. You have your drinkers, your smokers, your amphetamine-takers–you even have one writer who was most creative while fondling his genitals.
No matter the routine, (strange or somber), it’s described here in a way that helps me visualize a day in the life of many of the creatives I most admire.
Reading these accounts not only makes me feel better about some of my own strange habits (none of them nude!), it also gives me some ideas about what might help me be more productive. While I don’t think I’ll start using Corydrane, as Jean-Paul Sartre did in spades–nor will I start doing headstands, one of Igor Stravinsky’s methods of getting “un-blocked,”–nor will I start using potent herbal laxatives, as Louis Armstrong advocated, I do have a few lessons to take away: such as a lighter lunch and a scheduled nap time.
Today I’m starting a 5-week Writer’s Retreat and I need to perfect my own rituals so that I can get the most out of the time ahead of me. I want to finish 2 books: a book of poems and a memoir. And to do that I need to get down to business. So I wrote a little entry of my own, mirroring the 161 in the book. Let’s see if my Daily Rituals will help me succeed.
Patricia Murphy (1970-)
Murphy devoted much of her life and energy to being a teacher and editor. During the academic year she struggled to find time to write, which nearly ruined her self esteem and made her feel like a failure as a writer. During the summers she often agreed to teach additional classes, perhaps to self-sabotage her writing efforts.
When she did get a summer to devote to writing, she was very disciplined. She awoke every morning at 5 am and drank coffee while reading and chatting with her life partner John. At 6 am she exercised–either going for a run in South Mountain park, or attending fitness classes at The Hub, where she enjoyed the social benefits of working out with a peer group. Back home, she drank a fruit smoothie with spinach, berries, banana, pineapple, and mango. Then she did a 15 minute stretching routine and took a shower and dressed.
Finally at the computer by 8 am, she read her journal from the previous day’s work, and started composing the current day’s journal entry. Murphy was a life-long journaler, and reflecting on her process and product helped her to perfect her routines and spend energy wisely. After journaling, she would read for 20 minutes to an hour, then start the composing for the day. Perhaps as a carry-over from her hobby as a runner, she used tools such as timers and spreadsheets to help her keep track of pace and tasks. She always composed using two computers–one open to her writing in Scrivener, and one open to a spreadsheet with lists of themes, characters, titles, wordcounts, etc. She might have missed her calling as an accountant.
While at her desk, with a clear view of her beloved South Mountain, she guzzled water and had to get up often to pee. By 11 am she was ready for a snack, which usually consisted of a big kale salad with chick peas, avocado, pomegranate seeds, blueberries, and sesame seeds. She liked to keep her meals under 400 calories, otherwise she would fall straight to sleep.
Back to the computer by noon, she completed another 3 hour writing session–moving between her journal, her spreadsheet, her poetry, and her memoir. Whenever she needed inspiration, she would grab a book and read for 20 minutes or so. At 3 pm she ate another snack of lots of fruit and vegetables and toast, and then she tended to give in to a nap with her beautiful Vizslas who were always herding her to the bed with their sleepy eyes and droopy ears. She could fall asleep like a champ once her head hit the pillow. She slept like the dead for 20-30 minutes and woke up feeling ready to go.
After the nap she answered email or managed household necessities until John returned from work at around 5:30 pm. Once John arrived they spent the evening together: chatting, reading, walking the dogs, watching a TV show, running errands, playing Scrabble, cooking, eating dinner, drinking a beer, or taking a dip in the pool. Between 8 and 8:30 they headed to bed to read, usually falling fast asleep by 9 pm.
Now let’s see if that helps. What are your successful daily rituals?
John is in Mexico and I’m filling his absence with books. Right now I’m reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed. I’m writing a memoir, and as part of that process I have read about 100 memoirs. Some are good. Some are really not. I’ve been looking forward to this book because I read several glowing reviews.
I’m also particularly interested in Strayed’s account of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail because I’ve been reading a lot of books about hiking Kilimanjaro. So far, my favorite piece of writing about Kili has been the private journal of our friend Chris, who inspired us to take the trip in the first place. Some of the Kili books are tedious first-person diaries of how much an individual suffered on the hike (most often told with painfully repetitive & simple subject-verb sentence structure: I ached, I wheezed, I blah blah blah).
Would Wild make some more profound observations about humans vs. nature? Why yes, yes it would. Plus, it is finely crafted prose. I’m about 75% finished, and I have alternately laughed, wept, and hurried to my writer’s journal to record some inspirational thought. My favorite moment so far has been this phrase: “the wilderness had a clarity that included me.” Yes. I understand that. It’s why I love hiking and backpacking. And trail running and biking for that matter. Wilderness is my meditation.
Last night I stayed up reading. Blew past my 8:30 pm bedtime. The Vizslas got really angry about that and kept whining, their expressive eyebrows pointing towards the stairs begging for “bed!” But I sat in my garden until 10:30 pm and I could not put the book down. Strayed has crafted the hike as a narrative thread, using events on the trail as triggers for back-story. It’s something I’ve been implementing with my own book: imposing a narrative thread that creates depth through contrast. The bulk of my book now takes place in the forward action of the 5 months between my mother’s death and my father’s death. But I’m only halfway finished imposing that structure to my book. Please, please, let this reading be the impetus for finishing it.
So now there are only 60 days left before our group of 7 hikers sets off for 8 days on the mountain and 5 days on safari. Reading Wild while thinking about the details of our trip has given me the ability to re-frame my feelings. For the past 3 months now we have obsessed over preparations: Agonizing over missed work-outs, ordering perfectly good gear then exchanging it for perfectly good different gear, waking in our soft beds worrying about waking up on the hard ground in sub-zero cold. I’ve been having a recurring dream that slices the night air about once a week: I jolt awake after I have plummeted off the side of a cliff. But in reality there aren’t even many cliff-y sections on the Kili hike. These are insidious anxieties.
In Wild, Strayed describes her inexperience with backpacking in contrast to the people she meets on the trail. I am more like those experienced hikers than I am like Strayed. And yet I think I’ve gotten carried away by fears. I remember telling an acquaintance that I was planning to hike Kilimanjaro. “People die there!” he said. “Yes.” I nodded. People die there. Or people fail to summit. Or people get AMS and vomit all day. Or people get dirty and tired and grumpy and cold and sore. I am, I admit, afraid of all of those things.
But last night as I was reading I felt suddenly blessed about the Kili trip. And why had that been missing? Because I had been focusing on fear. Wild made me focus on opportunity.
No matter what happens on the mountain, I’ll have people I love at my side. I’ll have a strong and healthy body. And the view certainly won’t suck.
My first of many Packing Run-Throughs for Kilimanjaro. Penny wants to come with us.
