2 Questions

There are two questions that I get asked repeatedly and regularly. They both make sense for people who know me and my habits, but I don't think I ever answer them properly. So I'll answer them here, where I don't have to think on my feet. 

1. Are you going to get a Kindle or Nook?

I don't know how many times I've been asked some variation on this question. I get asked about my feelings on e-readers often enough that I've developed something of a pat answer. I don't hate the idea of e-readers. In fact, anything that gets people reading is a wonderful thing. I hope people read regularly and broadly. I hope they fill their e-reader with books and catch up on modern novels, classics, and nonfiction. Seriously, I don't care what form you read as long as you read. As for myself, I would probably love a Kindle or Nook. I like the idea of having hundreds of books handy. But it's not something that I'm going to go out of my way to buy. If I end up with one, great. But even if I do, that doesn't mean that I'll stop buying print books. I prefer to read off paper. I find my concentration isn't quite as deep when I read on a screen. And even if I find that I love the Kindle/Nook and I love reading on it, I'll still buy paper books as well, and not just for that wonderful old book smell. There is something about being surrounded by paper and books that makes me feel at home. I'm never more happy then when I'm in a library or bookstore, surrounded by stories. Browsing those shelves I find books I would never have expected to read, that become favorites. I find new ideas. I can't get that browsing experience electronically. Because I prefer to read serendipitously, I'll never stop book buying. Even if I do purchase a few electronically. 

2. Are you ever going to get a Keurig?

I drink a lot of coffee and tea. I'm the queen of hot beverages. So it's natural to assume that I would want a Keurig. I have friends that love theirs. I've used them in hotels and been happy with them. But I'm never ever going to get one. I have two reasons. The first is purely personal. As I mentioned before, I drink a lot of coffee. I drink a pot of coffee every day at work. Decaf of course, but it's a full pot. I pour cup after cup. I can't imagine if I had to get up to make a new cup of coffee each time I ran out. Currently I just pour some fresh stuff from my 12 cup maker on top of the cooling coffee. I can't imagine drinking less and I can't imagine having to make it in individual sized cups. 

The second reason that I won't get a Keurig is only partly personal. I started to notice that K-cups now make up more and more of my grocery aisle at stores. Box after box of K-cups are available in every possible brand. And each of those little cups is made of plastic. That means that every time I make a cup of coffee I'm contributing a tiny cup of plastic to our landfills. While that may not seem huge, now imagine that everyone in your town does that each day. If every person in Des Moines drank one cup of coffee each day (and used a K-cup) that means that over the course of a year, Des Moines alone (with a population of almost 600,000) would add 219 million little plastic cups to the landfill. 219 MILLION!!. In our relatively small city. Now imagine the number of K-cups coming out of a city like New York City. So far I haven't heard anyone talk about the environmental impact of the Keurig but I bet we will start talking about that soon. I can't think of a more wasteful device out there. They look lovely and make decent coffee, but they also make a ton of trash. 

Joy in the Process

When I was sixteen, I set up an old desk downstairs in my parent's basement. I had an old manual typewriter down there that clicked and clacked as I pounded the keys. You really had to work to hit them since it was so old. I set up an old hardside suitcase as a chair since none of the chairs down there were high enough. And I would spend hours down in the basement (0ne of my least favorite places) crafting a story. I wrote over 150 pages of a novel attempt while sitting cramped on a suitcase handle. But I couldn't stop.

In college I filled notebook after notebook with stories and personal notes. I graduated to a portable manual typewriter that I would sit on the floor with, nestling it in my lap as I sat indian style. I probably drove my neighbors crazy with the constant clack of the keys. I know I drove my roommate crazy. But I was obsessed. I loved writing. And I was completely fearless when it came to it. I would write anything.

Over the last ten years I have barely filled three notebooks. I have written four children's stories that I'm still revising, even though I wrote the first one over eight years ago. I've hardly touched a typewriter and can't even find my old portable. These past couple months I've been trying hard to restart my writing. I've been reading writing manuals. I've been carrying journals. And I've set up my own desk again. My office and library is upstairs in the second bedroom. And all I can show for the last year or so of effort is one and a half notebooks. And last night I started wondering if I was ever cut out to be a writer.

To say that I was a bit down last night is an understatement. Two people came to my rescue, Jeff and Kate Dicamillo. For the last year or so I've been listening to writer interviews wherever I can find them. One of my ones I listened to yesterday was one with Kate Dicamillo done for Barnes and Noble. It's a great interview but I was particularly interested in a poem that Kate mentioned having tacked to her writing desk. It is by Marge Piercy and has these lines: "The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved." And reading those words I am reminded that lately I've been focused on getting published. I've been focusing on being loved, on being read. Not on the craft. Not on the process. Not on the journey. And that's why I've been afraid to write. I write with an editor already in my head telling me that it is not publishable. I forget that writing is its own reward. Sometimes just crafting the story is more fun than having it read. And the crafting portion is what I used to love. I never showed my work to anyone then. I just wanted to see where the characters would go.

And secondly Jeff helped me. I was upset and unsure and Jeff reminded me of something. He reminded me that work is great, but I don't have to be productive all of the time. Sometimes I can take the night off. Sometimes instead of staring at a blank piece of paper and cursing myself I can drink a glass of wine and read comics all evening. Sometimes I can do nothing more than watch a football game and no one will think the less of me. And sometimes I can remember that life is to short to be serious about. In the immortal words of the Indigo Girls "and the best thing you ever done for me, was to help me take my life less seriously. It's only life after all." And I remembered that it's only writing. I'm not curing cancer. No one will die if I don't write. And suddenly I feel a bit more free. A bit more playful. And much more like a writer. Joy is in the process. Work is its own cure.