Better, Still

May 2, 2000

This is the part where the gods decide to get me for talking about how good things are. Just like poor Eddie Poe and Anabelle Lee-- those jealous angels are everywhere.

But hell. I'll risk it.

This is a pretty cool kind of good, too-- because it's got no particular cause. I didn't make a big story sale, or have a crazy affair, or finish a book or anything. I just feel like stuff is coming together, things that I didn't even realize were fragmented.

The other night I looked at the stars, I told you that, and if I had to pinpoint a moment when things started to come together, that's it. Before then I'd started to notice the problems-- I felt bored, frustrated, in a rut, as if I were going through the irritating motions of life... until they didn't even irritate me anymore. I felt I was less a person and more a collection of automatic responses, like those AI precursor robots that respond to light, movement, and sound, but certainly can't be said to have sentience. I went through the day, my job, my exercises, social stuff, even sometimes my writing, and I didn't connect with any of it, I felt distant, I felt I was waiting.

Then, perhaps because on some level I just couldn't stand to be like that anymore, something shifted in my head, and I woke up.

Because the biggest problem I'd had, one I'd been wrestling with off and on for a while, was that I didn't seem to be thinking much anymore. Not like I used to, about big things and little things, holding my preconceptions up against the way the world worked, considering my past and contemplating my future. Hell, even tearing apart the fabric of books to see how they worked, puzzling over epistemology, reading history and science and really trying to analyze it.

You know-- existing as something more than a set of tropisms.

I've been thinking again. I can tell because I don't get bored as easily. There's things going on in my head to interest me. I can also tell because I'm writing poetry again. My fiction can hang on plot and action and automatic style and cool shit, if forced, but that's never been the case with my poetry. It needs to be about something, which requires self-examination and conscious attention to the world. I'm getting that stuff back.

As a result, life seems much better. I've started reading again, a lot (not that I ever stopped reading, but my rate slowed considerably-- I spent a lot of time letting my mind simply idle). Okay, let's have a little book-break:

Since last we spoke I've read some Sturgeon stories, which are always lovely. The nicest compliment anyone's ever given me regarding my writing was to compare me to Sturgeon (Thanks, hon. That still comforts me in my more self-doubting moments). I also read Soul Music by Terry Pratchett (most of it while sitting in the sun on the Blue Ridge Parkway). Not the best of the Discworld novels, but definitely not bad. I'm a Discworld addict. I could do without the puns, but for the most part the books are funny and well-plotted, and most of all they have heart. I've also read most of Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. When King is on his game, he's the best. This book didn't do much for me at first, but about halfway through it began to win me over, and now I'm racing toward the end.

I'm also thinking about these books, and what they can teach me about my own writing, as well as what they can teach me (or at least suggest) about life. Yes, I'm a firm believer that popular fiction, good popular fiction, is very capable of teaching and leading to change, while at the same time being a good story. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't try to write the stuff.

And I already told you about reading Billy Collins.

My attempt to live a more physically fit life is going well, too. I've been exercising long enough that it doesn't really hurt in the morning anymore. I'm eating better (and less-- I have a tendency to gobble and binge). I think it's been at least two weeks since I ate anything that used to be a cow, and there are untouched frozen pizzas slowly freezer-burning in my kitchen. Those who've watched me eat should realize what an accomplishment that is.

I'm less stressed out about work. I finally realized that they haven't asked me yet to do anything I couldn't manage, and that it's really unlikely that'll change. Today I got a compliment on some work I'd done (something sort of fun, actually-- fuzzy heartwarming package-copy for a line of those collectable Christmas-lighted-village things), and for the first time felt a measure of satisfaction in my work. It's not a novel, and it doesn't change the world... but if I hadn't done it, someone else would have, and probably a hell of a lot worse (that's not arrogance-- have you read your typical fuzzy-heartwarming package copy?).

So, yes, things are dandy. Maybe it's the nice weather that's making me feel better. I suspect that, more likely, it's from a deeper cause... the essentially optimistic part of me that got tired of feeling like I had a soul full of tepid dishwater.

Until next time, darlings. Unless my joyful noises lead the universe to hurl a cement truck at me...