Last Monday I tested out a breakdown of which at its freshest alternated bawling with fighting back tears, as when facing the friendly checkout clerk at PCC. In those brief dry intervals I conjured hatchling sea turtles trundling toward the sea, an image I call upon in times of flailing anxiety.
What prompted the episode was a series of mostly unspoken truths about my novel that finally collided with a decision to crash and let it all burn. I quit, I said, the only two words I could utter intelligibly. I wasn’t accomplishing my only reason for writing – to save life on earth.
The novel I’d written and been revising for years is about saving nature. A woman’s emotional journey through grief towards accepting her true nature and living her true purpose. But it’s not working. Protagonist not relatable enough. Emotions not adequately shown. Not literary. Too environmental.
At the end of that Monday I realized that by quitting I had torn out a chunk of my heart, the part that’s my essence, who I am when I think about who I am. Writing this a week later still springs forth those tears, dripping into the crevices of my keyboard, rusting its innards, making the letters E,V,O, and L stick so that they can no longer be used.
But that won’t do. Maybe for the time being I won’t be working on the novel, but I’ll still be writing (and going back to school). A long time ago I used to blog as a method of checking my sanity when I was home alone with a baby and toddler. It let me be me for a short while every week, and hopefully allowed me to be a better parent because of it.
So I’m trying it again. Some posts may occasionally be about writing, but all of them will include some aspect of nature – seeing it, saving it, allowing it to save us. Maybe someone will read, maybe not. Maybe I’ll test out a slightly different variation of breakdown in the future, as many writers do. Or maybe I’ll never, ever give up. Those baby sea turtles need us. And we need them.
Annegsherwood.com 