pronoia

Ticker

Yesterday I left work early to let a workman into the house (we're finally getting the cracked window replaced--over a year after we moved in), and he was prompt and quick. I could have done work I'd brought home, but instead I took myself and my laptop to the coffee shop for some writing time.

I deliberately went to the coffee shop that didn't have free wireless, because I can get sucked into the 'net awfully quickly. And I got some writing done. Not a lot--perhaps 650 words, but a good beginning.

I also read over some of the other writing I've been doing--little seeds of essays, some things more fleshed out--and was really liking what I read. None of it was perfect, but it was all going somewhere. That's a big hunk of something.

Even though I don't want to talk about it much, I do want to have a running word count on here somewhere so that if it stalls at one word count for too long, you all can send me email nudges. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to find a ticker or something pretty, as opposed to me writing WORD COUNT and updating the number. I'll do that if no better options present themselves, but if you know where I can download a pretty ticker, drop me a comment.

Just Me and the World

At the coffee shop yesterday I overheard two seniors talking about their summer plans and those of their friends. One young man is spending the summer in the wilds of Alaska in the kind of place where you meet the mail plane once a week and have to fly two hours in a tiny plane to get to a drug store. He's allowed to bring fifty pounds of luggage total. "Fifty!" they exclaimed. "You can't even take many books! For the whole summer!"

So I started thinking. If I were only allowed fifty pounds of things for a summer, what would I bring?

• Blank books
• Stationery and stamps
• Camera and film
• Sketchpad and pencils
• Dr. Bronner's peppermint castile soap
• Toothbrush and two tubes of toothpaste
• Lunapads
• Overalls, two pairs of jeans, two pairs of shorts
• A variety of t-shirts
• Sweatshirt
• One niceish outfit, just because
• Two pairs of sturdy shoes
• One rainjacket
• Bug spray
• Sunscreen
• Hat
• Sunglasses
• Neti pot
• Basic first aid and herbal supplements

I think I would be tempted not to bring any books at all, despite the panic that ensues when my books-to-read pile gets anemic. One of the principles of The Artist's Way is a reading fast, a whole week where you don't read anything you aren't absolutely required to read for work. (Cameron points out that we're all quite adept at getting out of work we don't want to do, and we could perhaps use our powers for good that week.) The point is to take away a crutch that too often serves as a stand-in for really engaging the world--for writing or gardening or painting or rearranging the house. Reading, however wonderful, can be the worst enemy of creativity sometimes. I always end the week not nearly as interested in books as I had been before I started. I always end the week immersed in other projects.

It made me think how lovely it would be to spend a summer book-free, to take seriously the idea of a creative retreat, even if I were working hard at something else.

At some point in my life, I'd like to spend a summer building a house with my own two hands and having this kind of creative retreat. No books. No phones. Just me and the world.