fixation part one

If you?re thinking about doing a post in installments, I wouldn?t recommend it. For one thing, even if your thoughts were going in a clear, logical direction you will be hard-pressed to remember what that direction was the following day when you try to pick up the thread. (And no, I?m not saying MY thoughts were going in a clear, logical direction. Surely you know me better than that).

Perhaps if you actually scribe your posts?plan them out, draft up outlines, carefully craft your long-winded blah blah blah story?in that case, you may have more success with this concept of the post by installment. Alors, my only self-imposed rule with this whole blogging thing is that I sit and write at a go. No editing, no rewriting, no planned structure. Otherwise, hell?why am I not upstairs at my desk working on fiction?

Hey. That brought me back to the topic at hand.

So, for the past five or six months, I have been actively trying to help and support Mary through her life crisis. The fixation grew worse. It got so bad that Mary really didn?t care about anyone but herself (and Al, of course)?not even her little boy.

This was hard for me. Because like many of my fellow good Samaritans selflessly paving the road to hell, I operated under the misguided idea that all those hours spent listening to Mary run the gerbil wheel of her story would somehow lead her to slow the wheel, step off and try to carve out a new path. (I really wasn?t expecting her to get the wheel spinning to Mach 5). And, despite my best efforts to not be judgemental, I couldn?t help but to get angry that she couldn?t see the terrible effect of all this upon her son although I certainly kept that to myself. I knew she was ill. As I say, it was just hard.

We talked every day during her second hospitalization. Yet, despite the therapy and counseling (from the doctors and nurses, not me), she was still fixated on Al.

One night as I was driving home from work, I was thinking, how can she not see what she is creating here? Why isn?t she able to actively let go of this illusion and focus on what is real in her life? It is so obvious. And she knows it with one part of her mind. But the other part of her mind won?t let it go.

Bam. These questions ricocheted right back at me. What about my own fixation? When am I going to let that go? When am I going to accept what is real in my life and stop with this endless illusion of creating a writing life.

Because folks, I?m tired of it. Really. Sick. To. Death. Of. It.

A week ago yesterday I was driving home from work (having just got off the phone with my publisher) SEETHING. Outraged. I had every intention of ripping down bluepoppy and buying the url fuckpublishingDOT com. But I didn?t have time, I had a play reading that night.

Got to the play reading?fabulous people. Warm, friendly, enthused. But of the nine, only one had read the play. And no one had read the second act (which was what we were reading that night).

This was my fault to be sure, I had only gotten the scripts mailed out the Saturday before because I had to get my ass to a UPS store where I could photocopy hundred of pages, get them bound and mailed off--- and, as life would have it, it was a week from hell at work and Saturday was the soonest I could get them out.

But, it was also my bad for not having the experience to ixnay the idea of reading only one act. (NOTE: we were only reading one act because when I finished the first act we had a reading for it-- with a different group of people-- but that was over a year ago). I should?ve told the director, you can?t read just one act, particularly the second act. You will lose the rhythm and too much of the action in the second act is predicated on the first so if you don?t know what came before how can you appreciate what is now happening? And blah dee blah blah. Of course NOW I know this, Monday morning quarterback and all that.

My hope was that it would interest them enough to put it on this summer. But that isn?t happening. So. So so so so so. My little fantasies were going pop pop pop.

And I have to tell you, this fantasy, or rather, fixation, on creating a writing life (i.e. making enough income from writing that I don?t have to work in corporate America) has been turning its squeaky wheel in my head FOREVER. And it. Must. Stop. Because the reality is, despite my arriving late, long lunches, leaving early, dressing like crap I keep getting major kudos at work! It?s like some crazy movie where the more I don?t care about work the more they reward me. I have got to get my head around the fact that I am successful at something I don?t value, and value something that is not meant for me.

And, you deserve to hear the story of the publishing story. Grrrr. So, this fixation post will continue on to a third installment. However, because I don?t know if I will be shutting down bluepoppy this summer or not when the book comes out, the story I?m gonna tell you is not my experience. Oh no. I would never do that. I?m going to relate a story that happened to a friend of mine when she hooked up with a publisher. Just so you know when you start reading tomorrow. I?m telling you about this friend of mine . . .

Toodles.

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