The Questions are Big, the Answers Small

The questions of art are big, but the answers are small:

•  For years I didn't want to write. I wasn't blocked; I just somehow wasn't up to it. Realized that I needed but did not have a comfortable chair to sit in, and that the writing table at home was too high off the floor and uncomfortable to work at. Got some used office furniture that is just right. The chair that fits me best is a child's chair. So what.
• I didn't have the time I needed to practice my art. I began to steal the time. It worked for a long, long time and let me write four books.
• Felt too stressed and sickish to do my art. Hayfever, depression, acid reflux, anxiety, joint pain, etc. Turned 45 and realized I was mortal. Problem solved.
• I too often let good ideas get away because I wanted to be polite or look attentive. Now I switch on the light, get up and write the ideas down. Ideas and strange notions flood me during poetry readings and workshops. Now I take along a notebook and pen. Looks like I'm taking notes. I am!
• My "neat gene," inherited from my mom, tortured me into deep-cleaning the refrigerator and dusting the fan blades when I should have been writing. Answer #1: Sports injury left me immovable and all I could do was write. I found cleaning did not matter. Answer #2: Got well. Budgeted for someone to clean the house once a month. Bonus: When she leaves, the house is clean top to bottom.
• I couldn't get solitude, not even a whole hour alone, because significant other, although a writer himself, didn't like that I shut my door to write. I mean, he took action against it. Applied to writers' colonies where I stayed for a couple of weeks at a time. Relief. Then chucked him. Voila, problem solved.

Latest Entries for Writers' Mental Health

Click here for a writerly therapy session or two:

"I'd Rather Be Rejected," May 14, 2012
Link to "Why Afghan Women Risk Death to Write Poetry," NYT, April 29, 2012
"The 13 Most Common Errors on a Novel's First Page," April 26, 2012
"Silence as a Tool in Poetry," April 26, 2012
"The Idea Box," April 17, 2012
"If You Don't Come to My Reading, I Won't Come to Yours, etc." April 14, 2012
"Deleting the Unfinished Work," April 9, 2012