"But What Will I Write?"

I’m reading Simone De Beauvoir’s roman à clef, The Mandarins, right now—and I say roman à clef partly to sound superior, snotty, and French, and partly because, well, that is what it is. In it, she fictionally depicts the lives of some Parisian intellectuals at the end of World War II. And, because I looked it up on Wikipedia, and Wikipedia knows all, I can break it down for you a little bit more: the character Henri Perron is thought to be Albert Camus; Robert Dubreuilh, Jean-Paul Sartre; and Anne Dubreuilh, Simone De Beauvoir.

Et voilà!

So, now that we’ve gotten this far, perhaps I can get to the point. Henri, who is also the editor of a leftist newspaper called L'Espoir, has recently published a critically acclaimed novel and has announced his plans to write a “light novel.” Of course, the more he talks about this, the more everyone gets excited and asks him a lot of questions about this “light novel.”

Too bad he doesn’t have the first clue what it’s about.

Now, bear with me, as I’m certainly no French intellectual—I know, I know, you’re shocked!—but my favorite aspect of the book so far is Henri’s inner struggle with self-definitions. Is he political, or is he a writer? Is he both? And his bigger question, considering how much he and everyone he knows has changed since before the war, is:

What in the hell will he write about, the past or the present?

So I might not be a post-WWII French intellectual, but anyone who defines oneself as a writer could likely identify with these nagging questions. You ask me what I’m writing, right now, and while on one side, the honest answer is, I’m writing Groupons five days a week and some blog posts here and there; the other, equally honest answer in my mind, is that I’m writing much more. I am writing scribbles of thoughts in a journal; I am constructing ideas and sentences in my head that may or may not ever make it on a page; I am questioning multiple times a day, “What will I write?”; and yes, I am writing Groupons and blog posts.

Yet still my head alternately feels too full to narrow down an idea or too empty to write anything at all. This has been driving me absolutely out of my mind, until I read the following passage, and I suddenly calmed the fuck down.

An excerpt from The Mandarins:

Henri imagined a solitary country home, pine trees, the smell of the scrub. ‘But what will I write?’ He continued walking, his head empty. ‘The trap is well laid,’ he said to himself. ‘Just when you think you’re escaping, it slams down on you.’ To recapture the past and preserve the present with words is all very fine. But it can be done only if there is someone to read them; there’s no sense to it except if the past, if the present, if life counts for something. If this world has no importance, if other men mean nothing, what point would there be to writing? There would be nothing left to do but yawn in boredom … Only there isn’t time enough for everything, that’s the tragedy of it. Once more the refrain began repeating itself insistently in Henri’s head… What was he to do? Give in? Not give in? Get involved in politics? Write?

He went home to bed.

I can only wonder if this “light novel” of Henri’s will ever even happen. That’s the problem with questioning yourself so much, isn’t it? After awhile, the only thing you have energy to do is go to bed. But maybe, later on, all that questioning will lead to action, and you’ll write something better, and more worthwhile, than you ever imagined.

After all, Camus wound up winning the Nobel Prize in literature. But it wasn’t for his novel. It was for his political essay, Reflections on the Guillotine.

Maybe I should start telling everyone I'm in the midst of writing a light novel. Next step, the Nobel Prize!

Just a thought...

Writer's Block: The Gun Has No Trigger

I haven’t been writing lately. Well, that’s a lie. I write all day at work, five days a week. But that doesn’t really seem to count.

This blog hasn’t been updated in weeks. The last entry in my journal was in March. There’s just…nothing.

So I write all day at work. Then I come home, and my laptop sits, closed, on the chair, on the table, on the cat-hair covered rug. It might as well be locked in a closet (which apparently, I did to my poor little kitty all day yesterday). I read The Hunger Games series. I do yoga. I watch New Girl and Mad Men. I keep having the same conversation, over and over. I look at my laptop. I feel my journal in my bag, smacking against my thigh as I walk to the train.

But still: nothing. No writing.

I went to Indiana last weekend to visit my family. By Sunday afternoon, my dread at driving back to Chicago, alone, was overwhelming. I felt it in my stomach. I didn’t want to go. It’s not that I was dreading coming back to the city. I shouldn't have been dreading the drive; after all, it’s not like I haven’t taken the trip alone, countless times.

I just didn’t want to do it.

About halfway back to Chicago, right when I was passing the windmills that seem to go on for infinity, the little red lights blinking, the blades spinning rhythmically, I figured it out: I didn’t want to be alone with my own thoughts.

No wonder I can’t write.

You guys, I don't mean to get all emo on you and everything, but it makes me feel like this:




Maybe that's not it, exactly, but I had to get that song on here, somehow. And it's something. (In more uplifting news, I'll be seeing The Dirty Projectors at Pitchfork this year!)

I'm off to my hot yoga class now, where I'll try to focus, find my center, and most importantly, not fall down. In the meantime, I'll just try to keep in mind:

You'd see a million colors if you really looked.

Yet another example of why my pops is the SH*T

Have I mentioned recently how Poppa Hamm is the coolest? Well, he is.

I was talking to him earlier tonight about my job search, how I can’t pay my rent, and so on. Then I mentioned how I was frustrated because I’d been asked to rewrite an article for my internship (you know, the article I had major writer’s block over)—because apparently, as all writers face from time to time, the editors thought it was way off the mark.

It’s upsetting to get that kind of feedback from an editor any time, but even more degrading when it was an article you wrote for FREE. So my first thought when I got the email to rewrite it was, “I have to prove that I’m not a bad writer! I have to write the shit out of this rewrite!”

But then I started actually trying to rewrite it. This mostly led to me increasing the premature frown wrinkle between my eyebrows as I frowned at the Word document that’s now really brightly colored from all the various editors’ track changes.

So my thoughts changed to, “Why am I doing this?” My internship is over. This company is not hiring me. Outwardly, I said, “Fuck it!” and pushed my Macbook away from me in a hissy fit. Then I remembered I was in a crowded coffee shop. (Of course I was at a coffee shop. And not Starbucks. White people point!)

That was about the time I decided to call my pops. After explaining the situation to him, I asked if he thought I should rewrite the story. His response?

“Al, sorry if this is too blunt, but: FUCK NO!”

Hee hee. I knew my tendency to say ‘fuck’ a lot had to come from somewhere.

Greg Hamm then proceeded to go on a rant about how if they wanted me to rewrite it, they could either pay me or do it themselves, and told me if I rewrote it for free he would disown me.

Sold. I’m not rewriting it.

My dad’s awesome.

Writer's Block

Maybe you’re thinking, I wonder what Al’s up to today? I’m sure you were. What else could you possibly be thinking about on a Friday afternoon?

Here’s your answer.

I have been staring at a Word document for two and a half hours, typing and retyping a paragraph. Every now and again I take a break to finish some exciting fact checking changes. But now I’ve finished all of my fact checking assignments and have nothing to do, except write this article. All I need to do is write 600 damn words about the top three cities for job hunting and relocating, based on some Forbes’ study. (In case you’re dying to know, those three cities are apparently Madison, D.C., and Boston. Not Chicago? Go figure!)

This article is killing me. I’ve had the assignment for two weeks. I was thrilled to get an actual writing assignment at my internship. So what do I do? I put it off until the last minute—it’s due on Monday—and then I completely lose the ability to write a complete sentence. Kind of sad and ironic that I’m still somehow able to write this blog post, huh.

Writer’s block is like a hangover that you still can’t shake by dinner time, even though you’ve tried drinking a giant bloody mary, taking a nap, and eating greasy food. Writer’s block is like when I found out Amber Hibbert was the valedictorian, and I had to accept 2nd place in our silent academic battle that had started in 4th grade. Writer’s block is like finding out the guy I like is a Republican. Basically it’s everything that is evil in life. Or, it’s a really sweet album by PB and J.

My inability to write was making me so crazy that I walked to Jewel in the rain and left with a one pound bag of strawberry Twizzlers. Now all I have is a stomach ache, wet feet, and a blank Word document.

I have two hours left to write this. Then I have to leave here, don an apron, and try not to spill beer all over myself. Wish me luck in both endeavors.