Nothing is Wasted

It’s easy, after all, not to be a writer.
Most people aren’t writers, and
very little harm comes to them.
-Julian Barnes

As you know, I’ve been editing. Not just my novel but my house. Particularly, my office. It’s been an enlightening, sad, frustrating work. Suffice to say, while I was working on getting better, a lot of things were forgotten, set aside, pushed aside, stuffed somewhere to deal with later and stacked.

As I mentioned before, in fact I’m afraid I’ve mentioned it ad nauseaum, one of the worst problems when my disease was raging was exhaustion, along with swollen, painful joints. I could barely tolerate food, which didn’t help my energy level, but does take off the weight. I don’t recommend that diet.

Getting dressed, taking care of my pets and plants (my babies) was as far as my energy went and because of the drugs I was on, my mind, once I was on the road to recovery, just didn’t track well. (You would not believe where I found what and some of my notes from that time…Yikes!)

Anyway, it’s taken two years to get to where I could—slowly—get through the tons of neglected papers and magazines. Then, there was all the short-circuited work I did before the illness. That was the tough part. To see work I had ready or almost ready to go out into the world is mentally discouraging. I know how hard it was to steal, squeeze, squirrel away the time to do the work and to see the plans I had ended prematurely, just felt like the last straw. Sometimes, it seemed such a waste.

But nothing is a waste. I truly believe that, but the purpose might have to change. It might end up being a learning piece of work, instead of a winning or earning thing, but my time will not be wasted. I will not let it. And it is up to me. First of all and most important, when I did the work I was doing something I love. That won’t change, no matter the outcome. Secondly, it may well still be used or turned into something else. That’s up to me, too.

That’s what happened with an essay I wrote before my illness. It was an essay very close to my heart, about an incident with my father. I submitted it to a few places with no success, but in my heart I knew it was meant for something, yet, my heart was so tied up in it. Still, I just felt it was good and needed to be out in the world, but I never got the chance to resubmit.

When I finally started writing again, the essay haunted me. I really needed to send it out, but just didn’t feel I could edit and improve it, yet. Then I started the poetry workshops. The subject of the essay was perfect for one of the assignments. I worked this new angle, with new perspective, new form, new frame of mine. Vintage Dust was written.

One could say, my goodness, it only got 15th place, but I say someone else related to it, took meaning from it. Who knows how many others tried and didn’t get 15th place. I imagine if my father knew (and I think he does) he’d be proud of me and proud to be a part of my tiny success, too.