Personal Log #2
On trying to make a career out of writing while still figuring out the right way to go
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I am sitting in an almost empty cafe. Occasionally the toilet door bangs as someone comes or goes. My partner Fraser sits across from me pouring lines of looping writing out of his red fountain pen and onto the page of the notebook on his lap. Words have always seemed to flow from him. He calmly writes about the day around him and about days that have come before — simply and profoundly that — turning the pages gently, one after another. To look at him at any point in the day, whether we are sitting in bed or at this stained, scratched table, is usually to see him doing just this: stretching a line into memory and meaning. It is a beautiful sight, rare and remarkable. It fills me with love and with envy.
Out of the two of us, I am the one that makes a living with my words, but he is the more confident writer by far. He is a writer who knows what he wants to write. I’m still figuring that out. I have published two books: A Still Life and another in secret. A third is currently being illustrated ready to launch next summer. I have a fourth idea tentative, half-ready to send to my agent. I write every day. I steadfastly and slowly work on my books. I write essays and articles and journal pages and hundreds and hundreds of determined little notes. I put in the work. I still have no real idea what I’m doing. I still woke up this morning and thought for the thousandth time: “God, I need to learn how to write — to really write. I need to dig deeper. I need to figure out what I’m meant to say.”
This personal log today is about that.
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