I recently watched the PBS special on Henry David Thoreau. Having already read a biography about the man, as well as most of his autobiographical essays, I did not learn much that I didn’t already know. I did find out, however, that it took Thoreau six years after his two years in the woods to turn the notes from Walden Pond into a book.
This tiny piece of information may have gone unnoticed by most viewers, but it struck me harder than just about anything else in the program. For the past six months I have been making almost no progress in organizing the notes and observations for my own manuscript, and I was heartened to discover that I was on a timeline not unlike Thoreau’s when he wrote Walden. I would never compare my writing process to that of one of my literary heroes, but I was pleased nonetheless.
The problem with my own writing is that I currently have more content than I can use. The theme of my project is the raising of a bicultural daughter. I have been jotting down anecdotes and thoughts on this subject ever since Clare moved out of the house, so I now have a decade of material to go through. I recently stopped writing with pen and paper, because the pages that come from any kind of stream-of-consciousness writing only add to the pile. At this point in the project, I need ways to condense what I have, not expand on it.
I used to think that there were two steps to writing: the composing phase and the editing phase. Now I am into something else. It is, I think, a collating phase. Creating new content excites me. Turning first drafts into solid prose is especially satisfying. Organizing reams of roughly connected material and deciding what stays is no fun at all. It is a slog.
This blog entry, along with several other recent blogs, has been a result of these frustrations. Each morning I work on my main writing project for about an hour, and if I realize that I am just rearranging the deck chairs, I switch over to something else. Usually I wind up working on a blog. I feel both good and bad about this. On the plus side, I am at least creating a complete piece of reasonably good writing each week. It would be disappointing if I did not. On the minus side, I am using my weekly blogs to justify procrastination.
Writing is my favorite pastime. Fishing might be my second favorite. I do not have to catch fish to enjoy fishing, and I need to remind myself that writing works the same way.
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