Zen and the Art of Driving

The weekend of my 41st birthday, still riding high on the fun and love gifted to me, I pulled out of my driveway and nearly collided into a beautiful black mustang, circa 2012.

The driver did not wish me happy birthday but he did call out some names. They began with the letters F, B, and C. All pertained to my femininity. Use your imagination.

I sat in my truck and mouthed a pathetic ‘sorry’, hoping it would expedite his exit out of my life. The rant and expletives continued for many more seconds, but even before his rear lights had disappeared up the street, I was seized with a horrible realization.

That is me.

Okay, before you brand me a brute, I do not go off on people like that. But memories of past behavior began making a Power Point presentation in my head.

Every day I pass a hospital near my home, untroubled and focused on the penne pasta I will make for dinner. So woe be unto the souls who happen into my path trying to find the emergency entrance to get to their loved one who is sick and/or dying at the facility. Certainly my tail-gating and my cold narrow glares will teach them a lesson and make them feel bad for inconveniencing the almighty ME.

Yup. I can be that guy in the black mustang.

It’s been a struggle to get Zen over this. I really enjoyed my revenge fantasies (i.e. keying the beautiful black mustang and taking a baseball bat to its driver). Yet, when I made it through the murk and mire I knew this dude didn’t want anything bad happening to his ride. Who can blame him? Los Angeles is the car Mecca of the West. Our cars not only transport us, they define us. They free us to arrive late and leave early. Without them we’re waiting on the bus in the rain.

If it’s about vehicles, I want to be a vehicle of kindness and compassion.

I’m no saint and I’m no Buddha. I’m not sure if I want to be. But I’d like to take the pain of this experience and transform into something better. The little car trauma gave me the best gift that birthday weekend. The gift of understanding another human being.

I can smile at the guy popping an illegal U-ie in front of me because he might be late for work. I can relax when trapped behind a slow poke student driver terrified of making a mistake. I can forgive and graciously wave on the next car pulling out of a driveway and crashing into me.

Unless it’s a dude in a black mustang circa 2012….

Burn Out

WARNING: I AM SO BURNT OUT THAT I AM NOT APPLYING MY 500 WORD LIMIT...FORGIVE MY 822 WORD COUNT FOR THIS BLOG OR STOP HERE...

I have a story to tell you…

A funny thing happened on the way to this blog, this scathing vent to my writers group. A tale of woe and triumph. Poetry in pure motion. Something to stir the soul and rumble the heart and… POOF.

Despite the italics it wasn’t the magical fairy tale kind of ‘poof’.
My laptop overheated and shut down. The eloquent quibbling was gone. The best writing I had done in months.

I stared back at the now black screen, a shroud to the verbiage that was lost to the malfunction. A new found surge to scoff off all technology for a simpler method of communication rose and in rebellion I turned to my handy dandy composition book, identical to the ones from those 1980s elementary days, complete with pencil. Hell, I’d take a hammer and chisel to a brick wall at this point.

Enough with the machinations. Let’s get back to what I wanted to say when the computer went blank.

I am writing a novel. I am burnt-out.

There. The confession lives in the little composition book and on the landscape of my hard drive. Saying and writing I am burnt-out makes it a fact.

Backstory: Since 2007 I have been telling my writer’s group about this awesome saga I am composing that is not just one, or two, but possibly three novels. I boast I work on it daily. I delight in revealing the crafty tactics I use to inspire myself to work—like a naughty kid who is actually a good student but needs that nudge.

Being burnt-out could be interpreted that I want to stop writing this novel but the novel is technically written. It’s the revision that is strangling me. The redundancy of my own verbiage.

I have dabbled in other arts. Read other books. Even considered revisiting school. The same reasoning wins out—I am avoiding the work, the real work, the writing that must get done…

Blank. The computer screen went black and blank. There was nothing else to look at except my own visage.

I am not a fool. I know there much more writing ahead of me to get this novel published (and I’d like to take the good old fashion brick and mortar route. Self-publishing is something I am skeptical about, but I’m not done yet so it’s a moot point and another blog.) I had several lovely friends read my first draft back in 2008. Their positive criticism helped me grip the slab of marble and chip away at the crevices and cracks to make a David.

And then came the burn-out.

I have tried to wriggle my way out of the mire. To get excited about the story again. I even considered moving to Louisiana to finish (the setting being in both Slidell and New Orleans). Roll in the flora and fauna. Tire swing myself over the sloughs. Mingle with the locals and hope to run into a dew-eyed man that is the epitome of my hero.

So Cal is my home. Sorry. Transplanting myself, finding a new day job, new friends, a new apartment would only take me from what I need to be doing…writing!

The biggest hiccup in this revision process is that I have grown. I’m a waaaaay better writer than I was back in 2007. I cringe at the drivel I wrote 4 years ago. So I am re-writing a lot. I want my ‘good’ story to be ‘great’.

But I am sick of my use of the English language. The ways I have abused: ‘would’, ‘has been’, ‘seemed’, ‘that’, ‘dark’, ‘I looked’, ‘she glanced’, and many, many more. Which parts are too long, which are too short? Is the introspection too wordy? Is my hero too perfect, my antagonists too cartoony?

My eyes may as well be staring at the black screen again. I don’t even want to open the file to revise it any more.

I can only compare it to a good relationship that has hit a blip. Maybe I need an exotic vacation. Or a wild affair away from the drudgery so I might return refreshed and ready. Sloth tends to disguise itself as a good intention for me and I end up straying further, only to return after a long absence defeated and feeling more burnt-out than before.

The victory is I don’t want to give up, not after 4 years. I made this commitment to myself; I want something to show for it.

It is a valley I have barreled down into. The mountain peak is icy and implacable and I am laden down with heavy loads; doubt, perfectionism, burn-out.

There. Said it again.

I don’t have a solution but I won’t leave you on a downer. It ain’t much but it is something.

I have a Voice. I want to share it; I need to share it.

I have a story to tell you…