I awoke this morning to the cock’s crow – a rooster, seemingly outside my second floor window, was crying out the arrival of day. How strange they sound when heard in the remote hills of Italy; nothing like the cocka-doodle-doo we mimic on Saturday morning cartoons and children’s movies. I was dreaming of monsters for a few minutes before I realized it was merely the song of a rooster, not the cavalry call of aliens. I arose from the bed, the first bed I have had to myself in a room of my own in a house of my own for almost a year now. The journey, for now has ended. It is time to write.
Over the last month the story has taken shape. It is good. If I have the talent to bring it to life, it will be a worthy piece of literature. I believe there are few things in life more terrifying than having a dream and stepping up to play, unsure if you have what it takes to see the game through. We feel this standing upon the altar, holding a new born babe, walking into a first day of school, a new career, or a new town. And oh how keenly we feel it facing a blank canvas or musical sheet or computer screen. Perhaps in some ways even more so, for the test is between you and you alone.
I opened the window to look out at the hills beyond. It is beautiful here. A few houses clinging to the edge of a hill. Dogs bark, bees hum, a distant tractor can be heard, an occasional voice, and the wind. If you listen hard at night you can almost hear the sound of the moon rising over the mountains beyond. And now, the sound of church bells chiming from some distant hill town. I fixed my breakfast of yogurt and muesli, my morning coffee, and carried my computer to the table on the terrace looking out over the hills. From the heavens above, I heard a hearty “Buon giorno, Senora!” I looked up to discover an Italian woman about 50 leaning out a window of the same building I was in. I had not noticed that I only had one half of the house when I arrived as the sun set yesterday. “Buon giorno!” I responded. “Come mai vuoi venire a un posto isolato cosi’?” She exclaimed. ‘Why in the world would you come to a place isolated like this?’ I explained I was writing a book and the isolation served me well. She had a hearty voice and the bright eyes I so love about Italians. We chatted a few minutes before her phone rang and she excused herself, disappearing from the window of this hundred year old stone building.
I faced the computer. “Just notes, Sherry. Just start with notes. It will take form. Just write, don’t worry, just write.” Every time I sit down it is like this. The fear descends. I write a few words. The fear grips tighter. What am I doing? How can I possibly do this? The words are jumbled. The ideas clear but the words stumble and fall. How can I possibly write the jumble, punctuated by the occasional honey-silk passage, and then detangle it into something clear, concise, intriguing; something that leads the reader always forward with curiosity and desire.
I always made C’s in English. A’s for my ideas; F’s for my writing skill leaving me with an obdurate C average. I remember the paper I wrote when I was 17 in my first college writing class. I so loved my books and loved to write. I spent hours with a thesaurus pouring love and heart and soul into that paper. I was so proud of it. The teacher gave me an F. It was “overdone” she said. It would be over ten years before I would write anything again that wasn’t for a grade or an assignment. Almost twenty years before I would try again to pour love and heart and soul into a written creation.
The owner of the house arrived with prosciuto and salami and focaccia bread. How I love the Italians and their hospitality. Eat, drink, laugh, be merry. Pia-ah-no, pia-ah-no. There is time in life for all things. We chatted awhile over lunch and wine, coffee and biscotti before he left with a promise to return later with firewood and a map. I still have no idea exactly where I am.
There sat the computer on the table when I turned around. Waiting for me again. Was it this hard for the rest? The Hugos and Hemmingways, the Clancys, the Rands, and Coelhos, and Shakespeares. Not that I’m putting myself in their category, mind you, but was it this hard? I borrowed a book from Antonella yesterday. I had never read Virginia Woolf’s – A Room of One’s Own. I actually had no idea what it was about. When I pulled it from the shelf I was ecstatic to see it was actually in both English AND Italian. English on the left page, Italian on the right. How glorious! I am fluid enough in my speech and understanding now but still haven’t developed a skill for reading Italian. This would be wonderful practice. I asked Antonella if I could borrow the book. After several admonishments about not having it near fires, heaters, or water she acquiesced.
I walked around the table, the computer staring at me, daring me to find something else to do. “Perhaps Miss Woolf has something to share with me?” I said out loud to the empty room. I often do this. When I find myself unable to move or decide or take some kind of action, I pick up a random book, turn it to a random page, and ask for guidance. I cannot tell you whether there is a white bearded man in the heavens answering prayers, but I can tell you that when I have asked the Universe for guidance in this way, rarely has it ever remained mute.
This is what I read:
And one gathers from this enormous modern literature of confession and self-analysis that to write a work of genius is almost always a feat of prodigious difficulty. Everything is against the likelihood that it will come from the writer’s mind whole and entire. Generally material circumstances are against it. Dogs will bark; people will interrupt; money must be made; health will break down.
I had to laugh at this point for the dogs outside were performing a raucous symphony, my host was clearly intent on stopping by every morning and night, and I was eating only at the grace of a friend who had loaned me money to see me through this last month. I ate last month at the grace of my Aunt who received a bonus and insisted on giving it to me. My knee has gone out from four months of too much walking and not enough stretching and sitting in any position for long brings on sharp searing pain. So far it seemed I was in the ranks of all the great authors! I continued on:
Further, accentuating all these difficulties and making them harder to bear is the world’s notorious indifference. It does not ask people to write poems and novels and histories; it does not need them. It does not care whether Flaubert finds the right word or whether Carlyle scrupulously verifies this or that fact. Naturally, it will not pay for what it does not want. And so the writer, Keats, Flaubert, Carlyle, suffers especially in the creative years of youth, every form of distraction and discouragement. A curse, a cry of agony, rises from those books of analysis and confession. ‘Mighty poets in their misery dead’ – that is the burden of their song. If anything comes through in spite of all this, it is a miracle, and probably no book is born entire and uncrippled as it was conceived.
How right she is. It is the indifference that challenges me the most. So many friends and loved ones don’t have time to read my words, why would the world? And why would I write what the world will not read? How many times I have turned off the stats site dejected because despite the words of encouragement and praise from friends and loved ones, only a handful are actually reading the posts. There was a time the world would freeze me with its indifference, solidifying me until I too was indifferent. Somewhere in this journey it lost its grip. I continue to write because I must, because I am the only person who can give birth to the idea in my mind; the dream in my heart. I must write this story. I hope fervently with all my heart that it is a work of genius, that it will touch the world, change lives, but in the end it doesn’t matter whether it does or not. What matters is that I do all that I can do to bring my own vision to reality. That I can hold in my hands my own creation. That I can bring into this world and leave to it something that was not there before. This is what it is to live – whether you birth a strong marriage, a happy home, a charity, a band, a career, or a book, it doesn’t matter. Whether anyone else sees it, knows it, praises it, doesn’t matter. What matters is you take a dream and make it a reality, you create, adding fibers to the tapestry that make up this world; adding your own current of creative energy to counter the currents of destruction all around.
And so I will face this fear, this computer, my own soul and I will write this book, whether you will read it or not. I will give it to you, to the world, freely, to do with it as you wish with only the hope that it can fill you with the love and possibility that I feel as I give birth to this dream.
Hey Sherry! There is no one on earth that understands how long you have realized the dream you are living right now. Of course I may be a little partial when it comes to your writing. (smile) I am so happy for you! Naturally, if I'm not one of the first few people to read the finished product, I will really be disappointed. (just kidding) I know it will be great, just as all of your writing has been in the time I've known you. Guess I was one of the lucky ones to see the talent that make you such a terrific writer, not to mention the all the other genuine qualities that make you what and who you are. Don't worry about a thing Sherry. Those that know you well and those who are just discovering the personal perspective you put into all of your writing will fall in love with your book and of course you too. (smile) Keep living your dream and know that there so many waiting to share it with you.
Posted by: Gary | October 24, 2006 at 06:17 PM