Empty Well

The well is empty, the hours are open and expectant — or asleep?

On October 16, 2000, I had final copies of my latest book printed out at my husband’s office (we don’t send off a "manuscript" any more, i.e. pages written by manus, by hand, or even a "typescript" turned out by a typewriter). I mailed the white copy to my agent in New York and put the yellow copy in a box on a shelf in my office. 352 pages, the first book-length non-fiction work I’ve ever done. It went to the agent by Next Day Express.

I couldn’t wait to get this book, My Father’s Ghost, out of my hands and into hers. For starters, on the 18th began something known in astrological terms as a "Mercury Retrograde" which I do not pretend to understand the mechanics of but do pay attention to. It has something to do with the planet Mercury appearing to travel backwards in its heavenly journeyings, and it lasts for three and a half weeks. What it does is louse up communication, travel, any sort of business deals — and it is typified by missed phone calls, lost messages, delays and diversions of every kind, and letters that never arrive.

This nasty period of time happens three times a year, and is the only astrological factor I know of that actually, regularly applies to my life (not everyone feels it to the same extent, thank goodness). I wanted the book safely lodged with the agent. She probably won’t be able to sell it till next year, of course (for one thing she’s at the Frankfurt Book Fair till next week), but at least the project won’t be sitting here on my desk making me crazy because of some Mercury glitch at my end.

At any rate: that book is over, at least as far as the creative flow goes, and the hours of reorganization and refinement that go into truly finishing a piece, as in putting a fine finish on it, are over too. Certainly because of the Retrograde, but perhaps in part too because of the subject matter of this book (an account of my father’s last two decades, spent out West with me and my husband, and of how my reclusive, oddball, bum of a dad fell in love one last time before his death — fairly heavyweight personal stuff), I am feeling oddly — suspended.

Professionally, I mean (ordinary life goes on, all rush and wait and make more lists, as always, so you don’t forget to buy cat litter again). At the moment that there is no story pressing to be written, no play begging to be scripted, not even a couple of made-up characters nattering around in my head working up a plot of some kind between them.

I have one more writing task of minor revisions (in connection with another book) and then time blooms like a flower before me, blossom after blossom opening with effortless ease, and holding — nothing. None, that is, of the stress and inward urgency that demands that I sit down and start an account of some story that’s zig-zagging through my head in various forms (ha, look, she grabs up her spear and — no, no, a rope, a rope of leather braid that she got — so-and-so gave it to her, of course, and now — ), no need to fix that flux on the page in its first glimmering, before it slips away.

Because the well of story and speculation is empty.

That’s how it feels, anyway. Thirty years of working on a dozen published (or almost published, now)books and maybe as many shorter works, and all the little sub-vocal, story-telling voices are finally still.

This can’t be writers block; it feels too good. I look over the unread books on my shelves, the stacks of correspondence and other papers on my desk waiting to be dealt with, and I am flooded with pleasure at the idea of having time to sort, to file, to restore some semblance of order, to catch up on things that have been waiting in vain for my attention and to toss out stuff that is so long past due that no amount of attention will do any good at this point.

When I teach writing, as I do from time to time at Clarion Workshops in Michigan or Seattle, I always tell people to get out, do things, recharge their creative batteries with physical activity, social interaction, and other people’s art. Now it’s time to practice what I preach.

So, I took my old computer (a Mac Performa) over to the elementary school that’s two blocks from my house and gave it to them, with the printer and the manuals and all the rest of it, and the Principal said would I mind if she gave my phone number to a couple of her teachers who would like to have a writer come in and talk to kids, even read to them. I’m more at home with older kids (I used to teach 9th grade and still take on a high school kid for mentoring in writing now and then), but what the heck, we’ll see. The new computer I am using primarily for e-mail and to work on ideas for this web-page.

I do have plans, of course.

I want to rent a dozen movies from Alphaville, the off-beat video place that’s just opened next to my favorite used bookstore. I want to sit in the bakery with a cup of coffee and browse the art magazines for the colors, and haunt the public library the way I used to (before I got too busy), and go for drives and picnics in the countryside with my husband, who is also (supposedly) cutting back on his work load.

I want to work more on my web-page, maybe put up a scene from the stage version of The Vampire Tapestry, and there’s that tarot-like deck I designed with the text that goes with the cards; maybe one card at a time, giving space for some long thoughts in between. I want to finish that damned needlepoint thing I’ve been working on for a couple of years, so I can start another (they are great for airports and planes, in terms of the preservation of sanity).

Time to start noting down my dreams again; they’ve been quiescent because I’ve been too busy to pay attention to them. Time to write more notes to the grandkids, and make that tape of poetry I’ve been meaning to do for so long and send it to them. Time to call up people and arrange to go to lunch together, go see movies like Best in Show, wander into a gallery or two, go hear a concert by a celtic fiddler.

Sometimes I’ve heard myself telling people that I had trouble figuring out what "regular people" did with their time (since whatever it was, I was doing this other thing instead, this writing and rewriting and hustling my work on the net and with my agent and at SF conventions etc. etc. forever). Time to find out. I think I’ve got a good running start.

Meanwhile, when people say, what are you writing, what’s next? I’ll say, I’m 61 years old as of October 22, 2000; and I’m resting, and refilling the well.

--SMC
October 19, 2000

Copyright © 2000 by Suzy McKee Charnas