Editing Refocus

Sometimes, while I’ve been editing this book, I’ve wondered if I can still create a story from the blank screen. It’s been so long since I started a new novel, after all. I get hungry to begin, to start a new story, meet new characters, be in that world I make up, instead of the world I made up. I think it is a hunger for that other kind of creating.

Also, I worry and wonder if the last years have lost me more than I realize. And lost what I may never get back.

I know I am creating as I editing, sure, but it is different. It is a recreate, of sorts, a clearing up of a vision, many years old now.

I actually draw a lot of hope from feeling I want to begin, start, do something new, too. I don’t want to feel stagnant, dead in the water and just floating along. I want to write new, and I think writing something new keeps those muscles agile and strong. It also creates a different excitement.

But I have realized that if I am to finish this book, progress as a writer, reach my goal I must focus. Focus has been difficult these last few years. I felt so much as if I’ve been catching up, finding all I’ve lost, making up for lost time. I’ve felt a nagging to hurry, hurry, hurry. Some of that comes, I know, from wondering if I would every do…this. Write. Create. Do what I always felt was one of the things I was born to do. I was made to do.

So, as in so many times and troubles, I turn to poetry. After the morning hours of editing, I switch to writing poems and poem ideas. I don’t push or struggle, but wait, writing idle thoughts, doing thought maps, finding words. I let my mind go off on whatever tangent it wants.
I don’t often end up with any full-blown poem, ready for readers, but I end up with gems, in need of polishing. Perfect starting points for some in depth poetry retreat or session. I end up feeling as if I’ve created some small foundation to something wonderful and that eases the hunger for another day.

The novel comes back in focus, my goal doable.

Summer’s gone, with just a few more weeks of sunny days and warmth and the garden. Grasshoppers have grown lazy, the ‘Autumn Joy” sedum is turning pink, the hydrangea has gone brown and there is a hint of goodbye hovering near my pansies. I can’t truly blame them. I planted them last fall with all the hope that their brave faces would see me through to October, November and those first shaky beginning of spring. And they did.

I take the poem writing outside with me. Why not? Those days are not long mine to take. So I store them up like the hummingbirds hovering over the salvia garden up on the second tier of my garden stocking up on nectar. There are lessons there, I suppose, so I take poems, words, hopes with me on my morning walk, too, where the scent and chill has been decidedly autumny. It’s amazing how that morning walk and the poetic expressions and phrases gets me ready to knuckle under once I get home.

And so I will.

And so I do.

P.S. It means nothing big to anyone but me, but I braided my hair today. It’s been two and a half years since it was thick enough to do that and I smile happy tears.