My New Year's Resolution

What am I waiting for? This is the question I ask myself daily, hourly even. I can't seem to get anything done (except reading of course.) The time flies so quickly between rising at 7:30 a.m. and the end of the school day at 3:30 p.m. That is when I pick up my son from school and my "real" work begins. The lovely, snack-homework-dinner-tv hour-reading-bath and bedtime time. This time flies even more quickly than the time I spend thinking about all the things I should be doing that I am not doing. The difference is that when I am doing things for/with my family I know what I am doing is worthwhile and valuable and I don't agonize over it. I agonize, truly, my mind writhes in agony, over all that I do not do when I have my precious alone time. I end each afternoon with guilt over all I have not written. (By evening my optimism returns and I assure myself that tomorrow will be different, tomorrow will definitely be productive, tomorrow I will write!)

So what am I not doing that I should be doing? Well, most of the day I am not writing. Even now, while I'm writing, I am writing about not writing. See what I mean? I have ideas for articles that I have toyed with for years and have yet to make notes on. I am not making those notes now. I am reading articles, occasional good articles, and very often mediocre ones. I am certainly not working on my first, second, or third stalled novel - that is just too depressing. I am reading novels though - recently I have been averaging one every 24 to 48 hours. This week I finished "Middlesex" (excellent) by Jeffery Eugenides, "A Girl Named Zippy" (very good) and Iodine (good, interesting, a bit overdone) both by Haven Kimmel.

What I want to figure out, what the question for me is - I think - is why just reading isn't good enough. Why do I feel the itch, the bubble in my belly, the ache in my fingers, to write? It's not as if I've ever written anything of true relevance. It's not as if I have anything different or original to say. What I do have to say is flat out, fall down, one hundred percent average normal and boring southern girl stuff. Well, except that I'm gay.

I don't want to write about that, at least I don't want to write about it in a way that says Read My Writing Because I'm a Gay Writer. That is, well, gay. I don't want to write about "Coming Out" or "Lesbian Sex" or anything that falls under the label of "Gay-ness." But (sigh, sigh) I guess it can't be helped can it? I can't not write like I'm gay can I? No more than I can not write like a woman or a Southerner (Though it really pissed me off in college to discover that everything I ever wrote would be viewed through these lenses, these labels of Woman and Southern.)

I wish I could say that this is my pathos, that this "gay issue" is why I don't write, and think about not writing, and then play a Beatles album, and then not write some more, and then think about not writing, and feel guilty, and then drink coffee, read my novel, check my Facebook messages, and then not write some more. But it has nothing to do with being gay. Maybe I fear labels? Writing is for reading, and reading words requires labels. To really understand any story we must put it in a context of personal experience, and this requires labels. We all label our experience throughout our life. Such as, Childhood, Adolescence, Adulthood, Parenthood, etc... And this is just for the average reader. If one has taken a literature course then the labels come hard and fast; Modern, Post-Modern, Gothic, Historical, Feminist, Contemporary, Classic, etc.....! These are just the big boxes. Inside each big box exists a thousand smaller ones, different, of course, for each reader, but there all the same. So anything I write, even this, falls under a label - This writing, for example, might be labeled Immaterial, or more generously, Inconscient.

So to write at all is to be a writer, I call myself a writer, what I am doing this minute is writing, and yet, this writing makes me feel guilty for putting off doing my real writing. which brings me around to my 2009 New Year's Resolution. (I know you've been waiting to find out what it is after the titillation of such an original and mysterious blog entry title!) I am going to write more and worry less. This silly blog of mine may be read by no one, but the fact that it could be read by anyone makes it more fun and more scary to write, and it also excuses me from having to incorporate deep, meaningful, timeless themes.

Happy New Year! As usual, I feel like tomorrow has tremendous potential for productivity. I will definately get a LOT of writing done tomorrow!