Well, we got one home from camp. Albus has returned: freckled, dirty-footed, exhausted, and craving his screened devices. It's been an odd two weeks without him, and a portent of life to come. He's already twelve years old, and given that I left home when I was seventeen, my sense is of us entering a different stage of parenting, of trying to figure out how hard to hold on, and how much to let go. I intend to do a lot of both. For example, our ten-year-old, who is quite enormously tall, asked to snuggle with us the other night. She just needed to be hugged and held, despite her long legs and muscular shoulders and ability to make me hot lunches.
I'm serious about the hot lunches. She's made me several this week, thinking up a menu, preparing it, presenting it on a plate, and knocking on my office door. I could get used to this.
The fourth week of our summer holidays is coming to a close. This week has been cool, and marred by ridiculously noisy street-work going on directly outside my window, occasionally causing my entire office to vibrate in such a way that ear plugs become quite useless. It's also been a tough writing week due to the work that I'm doing. I will come through this and look back on this time fondly, I'm sure, as I always seem to do, but it's a grind. Instead of entering directly into the book this morning, I skimmed my FB feed, making all kinds of connections and discoveries (or so it felt; nice when procrastination takes on a purposeful aura).
* First I read an article on success by a young tenured professor who believes in giving, doing favours, taking time to do one thing and go deep, and making strong connections. I also appreciated his point that the most highly successful people, whatever their fields, were rarely the most outstanding performers as children, and that in fact it was their motivation and grit that set them apart.
* Which leads me to a blurb I read next explaining why creative people are often eccentric. This is science, folks! Apparently, creative people (and eccentrics) experience cognitive disinhibition, which means their brains fail to filter out extraneous information -- I assume this includes sensual and aural information, in addition to the collection of random facts about celebrities while standing in line at the grocery checkout. It's the ability to process this excess of information without becoming overwhelmed that leads to fascinating breakthroughs. But it can also inspire peculiar behavioral traits. Like Bjork wearing the swan dress at the Oscars, according to the blurb -- which was awesomely cool, I thought.
Okay, so stay open and make connections and get gritty.
Next?
* I took an online assessment to determine my "Decision Pulse." It's quick and easy, and I usually avoid these things like that plague, which shows you how determined I am to be distracted this morning -- to open myself to vats of cognitive disinhibition! I make my decisions, according to this quick and easy quiz, based on 1. Humanity 2. Relationships 3. Achievement. Apparently, I don't care about safety or security at all. (Sorry, family!) I think by "Humanity" the test means humanitarian impulses and the desire to serve a greater good. Which sounds lofty, and may or may not be accurate, though I do spend time each day praying that the work I do will help in some way. That it will heal and nourish rather than hurt.
* Finally, I guffawed with enormous appreciation as I read Anakana Schofield's brilliant and hilariously written take-down of the shallow, missing-the-point-entirely publicity machine that one steps into when one publishes a book. Anakana is the author of Malarky, which I've given to my husband to read right now, and she's damn funny, and doesn't seem to care who she's offending (which is a trait I would dearly like to grow into, but haven't yet). She's out in Vancouver and we've never met in person, but have enjoyed some back and forth via email regarding exercise habits and, yes, readings and publicity and such. She's put her finger on something really critical here, too: that it seems everyone wants to be a writer, but no one wants to be a reader. (Consider the proliferation of blogs!) What book publishers should be doing is nurturing readers; and what every writer knows it that public appearances inevitably turn into mini-sessions on "how to be a writer." But it's readers writers need, isn't it. People who love books. People who find solace in words. People who soak up a story, who think about the characters afterward and worry for them. People like me, actually. I love reading. Books are like old friends, companions, sparring partners, comforters, moral compasses, inspirations, teachers.
With that in mind, I'll turn off my distractions and step into the book I'm making, hoping it will ultimately offer both escape and comfort to a reader like me, sometime, somewhere, somehow.
Labels: books, camp, create, fun, kids, spirit, summer, work, writing