The sabbatical is definitely over

A year ago, I stopped writing.

But to be completely honest, I've never really started.

It's time to do something about that. I don't usually get too personal on here. I feel funny about writing this post... no, not about writing it -- but actually pressing "Publish" when it's all done, instead of closing out my browser. These are thoughts I might think, but would never let outside my head, where someone else might see or hear them. That's one of the things I'm doing something about.

In April 2004, I put down my pen. I told myself not to take a notebook with me when I went out. During my then-upcoming Tibet/Nepal trip, I'd send a couple of emails, but that would be it. After 9 years of notebook keeping, I decided to take a sabbatical. I was sick of writing. I was frustrated, with my work, with myself, with not saying on the page what I really wanted to be saying. With feeling that my voice was not valid.

The past 9 years, a line at a time
Since 1995, I've carried a notebook. At least one. A small one in my back pocket, one or two of varying sizes in a backpack, you name it. And you never, ever disturbed Anthony when he was writing. It might cost you your head -- and then I would go back to writing.

I wrote constantly. Whenever a thought struck. 3 a.m. While in line at Customs. In the midst of a rather pukey hangover.

I filled up notebooks right and left. My record? 3 days. On the Aran Islands, Ireland, in 2000. Hell, I even wrote a novel. 50,000 words. In one month, back in 2001 (thanks NaNoWriMo!).

But there was a problem with this.

All that scribbling, and no submissions
See, I've never sold any of my work. Or, with an exception or two, I've never really tried my hand at so much as a contest. I've worked some great copy jobs, and on the one hand, my writing and editing skills actually appear in a lot of places (you just might not know it's me). But as far as my other creative work, my poetry, my scribblings of dialogue and beginnings of character development, my novel ideas, even my own ideas for various and sundry websites...

Nothing.

They are just scribbles on lines, a loopy, near-illegible breaking up of white space, nothing but notebook after finished notebook holding down a shelf in my home office.

They are chapbook ideas that have never seen a Kinko's or a merch table at a poetry read.

They are novel ideas that sound damn wistful and they just might work -- but AntSaint has no MS on the way to a publisher.

They are websites that haven't even been sketched on notebook paper, much less set on at least some draft pixels.

Scared as hell
I've never really tried. That's the short of it, anyway. I've never tried to put much of anything, much less much of anything me, outside of my own head and into the world. Why? Because I've always been too scared to.

Want to see me clam up? Ask me to tell you a story. Want to see me look scared and so shaken it's like I'm about to collapse? Ask me to write you something. You'd think my hands had just been lopped off, and my tongue teleported to Mars.

I'm scared to death to tell a story. I'm scared to death to write. Yet these are things I feel I was born to do.

There are all sorts of things I could pin it on. Environments where speaking my mind was not looked upon kindly. Relationships with people who I thought valued me, but didn't, at least not fully. (My ability to euphemize, however, has been greatly honed during these circumstances.) To a degree, these things are true. They did contribute; these things are part of my life and person.

But I can't let them keep holding me back.

Help me AntSaint
When I started AntSaint in Sept. 2004, it was partly as a way to start ending the sabbatical. I'd taken some needed time off. I'd stopped thinking about scribbling all the time. I wondered about where I really wanted to take my writing -- if anywhere at all. The relationships and environments that had been pulling me down and tearing at me, were no longer a factor in my life. Writing was less a compulsion, and more a choice. I understood that, in a universal sense, it doesn't matter if I write or not. But if I choose to write, and if I love it, and want it -- then that's different.

I had to learn to live with that -- and learn to live with being around people who do value me, in and out, and with valuing myself. Not placing my self-image on a pedestal, mind you, but understanding my strengths and weaknesses, and having a truthful opinion of myself, and not holding to some falsely humble, always-focusing-on-flaws nonsense.

Now, I value myself better, understand better my shortcomings -- but also that my limitations do not define me. My possibilities do, and my actions do.

So I've started to write again.

The sabbatical is dead. Long live... the writer
AntSaint is part of that new writing. Now, I don't blog because I have some illusion about privacy or anonymity. I know full well that I'm out here in the midst of cyberspace, easily identified, if also easily hidden in the infinity of information that is this part of existence. I blog because it is a way for me to start feeling brave enough to write. I blog because it's a little scary, and I could use the rush. I blog... because I choose to, and that makes it all the more worthwhile.

Blogging gives me strength. It helps me remember that I have something to say. Not necessarily something brilliant or perfect, or shining or original. But some little part of me, and sometimes not even part of me -- knows that there's something I can do, that I'm good at. That I was born to do. Usually, it's just something that needs words, and I'm a decent conduit for helping ideas and things take form and comprehension in words.

Blogging helps me connect. I am by nature a bit of a loner, and most of the time I prefer my own company. The downside is it can be too easy to keep too much of my own company. Blogging reminds me to get out of my mind for a while. As much as I enjoy being by myself, my best times, and my greatest ideas and strength, all are nourished by times shared with those I most care about.

First most meaningful scribbles in years
A couple of weeks ago, I actually started writing a book I've had in my mental works for a long time. I've started properly sketching out some website ideas. This evening I wrote, oh, 3 or 4 draft poems.

I'm no longer completely petrified when I take out the notebook or sit down at the keyboard. (Well, I do often lock up for a little bit... but I'm getting better at remembering that at worst I can be ignored or disliked -- but no one's going to eat me.)

My sabbatical is over. I've dealt with enough of my life to understand what I can do -- and that it is what I get done. The rest is dreams and details. So I'm writing again, and living better, and loving better -- and hey, hopefully that will all help turn into some good writing.

(If you made it this far, thanks for bearing with me. Hopefully, the words and I only get better from here.)

Comments

[OsloFoodie]

I love writing and not only that but writing in English, which is not my mother tounge (I am Norwegian). People asked me why I wouldn't write in Norwegian and I have a hard time explaining to them I want to practise my English and I admire the language. I write about food, not something that everyone is preoccupied with, but it helps in keeping the words flowing since I love cooking. Here's my point, I know I will probably never write a book in English because I feel that my English is never going to be as good as I want it to be. Yet, for some reasons, I still have the drive to write in it (with many errors) and I try to keep on. Perhaps I will have this "sabbatical" period like you one day, sometimes I feel it coming. But you, you are the point where I really want to be, you have the language, you write well and now you even have your confidence to write again. From where I am now, it's a such good place to be that I can only dream about.

[TaylorJane]

I hear you. Often I think Sam and I are in a similar place. Way to go, busting out like that.

[JV]

You've said exactly what was on my mind, and what I've been trying to capture in print (pixels?) for a week now. Consider yourself blogrolled.

[Anthony St. Clair]

Wow... now that I'm done blushing...

O.F. - You have one of the coolest headers ever. Props to blog in English too - your English is just fine. You Europeans are some of the luckiest folks; my Finnish friend Carita, for example, can speak at least 5 languages. That was in 2000, anyway - Swedish, Finnish, English, Italian, French - but by now I'm sure she's up to, I dunno, 20 or 30.

Just keep writing. It's not about getting it exactly right - it's about getting it done. "Done is better than perfect" is an old writing adage I've been trying to keep nearer and dearer.

Taylor - maybe this summer could be a good time to put away the notebooks for a bit? Hike more, talk to plants, cook, drink beer on fine Eugene summer evenings? Lemme know if you're game - I may not be ready for another sabbatical, but well, summer vacation is a different story!

JV - thanks for the kind words. Sharp-looking blog, mate - good luck. Just keep on with the writing. It'll go where it bloody well wants - sometimes you just have to grab on and follow, you know?

That's the other great part about keeping a blog - you always wind up talking with the neatest people.