So, I've boxed up the ends of one search, here at the day-job, and expect in the near future to box up the remains of the other two. So that I can start the record-keeping and filing associated with a fourth. Eventually, I'll haul the stuffed-to-overflowing paper boxes up to the third floor space that has newly been designated a Secure Area for confidential files. And there they all will sit for three years, until it's time to schlepp them back downstairs and call the shredding service.
A thrill a minute, no?
As I was shifting files into boxes, I thought, in the aimless sort of way that one does when pursuing a task that is virtually mindless, about truncation -- which sounds dire, and after all isn't quite what I mean. What I mean is. . .folding. About being folded. About folding oneself.
Yesterday afternoon, I was interviewed by a student here at the day-job who provides content to the college's website in the form of podcasts. I'm a "unsung hero." Who knew? Anyhow, it was a nice interview, and I had good time explaining that my day-job consisted of bringing Order out of Chaos, and then she asked. . .an old question, really.
How do you write books -- so many books -- and do your day-job, too?
The first part of the answer to that is simple enough: You come home from the day-job, you apply your butt to the sofa, or to the chair in your home office and you damwell write. That's what gets the job done; nothing else will.
The rest of the answer is: And there's very little, if any, time left over to do anything else.
So you wind up...folding yourself; contracting; concentrating wholly on the work...and the work.
Now, it's a truism -- and in some times, a relief -- that, while a writer is writing, they needn't think about anything else. It's kind of a pass on having too much reality in your life. You may not, but I know that I sometimes suffer from Too Much Reality, and writing is not only an escape, but it's justified. We're under contract!
No matter how much of a relief, though, one needs to come out from under one's rock surface, eventually, and deal.
It's when you surface that you realize just how much -- or how little -- you folded yourself this time.
It's wonderful how very closely one can concentrate in the folded state; unfolding makes things...fizz and blur, like coming out of a long convalescence: Oh, I used to know how to do that (whatever it is); I wonder if I still do? Or still dare?
What do you do, to unfold, and flex?
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