A life in balance
Cindy on April 8th, 2008
âHow vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.ââHenry David Thoreau
It’s a little warmer outside, and I’m so ready to get out from behind this desk. After a long winter — endless months spent staring at my computer screen — I feel like a zombie. I get weird and unhappy when I do nothing but write. Or think about writing. I need balance in my life.
Many writing teachers have told me that the only way to become a real writer is to make deadlines and stick to them. This is very good advice. Authors have a reputation for being quirky or unpredictable — but the wildly successful ones aren’t quitters. They persevere. In fact, I’ve met a few who work so hard that they haven’t met their neighbors. Their world is populated only by agents, editors, publishers, and other imaginary characters.
But the solitary creative life â the tortured Poe brooding at his desk — is too one-dimensional for me. I believe you run out of air, not to mention ideas, if you lock yourself in a cabin or a garret and bleed on your keyboard until dinnertime. I don’t believe it’s possible to be an interesting writer (or person) unless you’ve got a real life — a life that offers up a wide variety of experience along with little glimmers of insight.
The happiest people I know lead three-dimensional lives, even if they’re not particularly adventurous. They don’t obsess over their careers, and seem to have gotten over themselves. They volunteer at the hospital, plant tomatoes, straighten their toolboxes, and trek through suburban jungles on the way to the post office. They raise children or Abyssinian cats. Some care for aging parents when they’re not working at the bank. Others rise early to ride mountain bikes or photograph morning glories.
As Rainer Maria Rilke told us in Letters to a Young Poet, even the most ordinary activity shimmers with poetry or story potential. But you have to leave your desk to make that discovery. So take a break from organizing paragraphs. Stop obsessing over plot and punctuation. Turn off the computer, grab your notebook, and tour a different neighborhood. Observe the zoology at a local park. Or if you’ve got the time and the budget, book your dream trip to Ohio Amish Country or Paris, France. Do everything you can to squeeze the juice out of your life, then come home and tell us what you’ve learned. — Cindy La Ferle
