What will you do with your one wild and precious life? - Mary Oliver



Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Time is not on my side

Time is my enemy. It goes by much too fast and I have not accomplished very much. I become obsessed with doing small things, like stopping to paint a tiny bird on a piece of torn cardboard, or seeing a beautiful textile and reaching out to feel the fibers. I blame this on my personality type. I'm an INFP. One description of this type says that I am 'like a new puppy, nosing into everything.' Yes, it's true. (You can find yours here.)

My writing suffers, and therefore I suffer, because of this character trait. One of my editors said, "You have an uncanny gift for describing the minutiae of everyday life." A kind way of saying I overwrite.

But I can't not tell you how the characters get from one point to another. As in, yes, John moves through the doorway like a loose skeleton, his drab green coat torn at the sleeve where he carelessly allowed it to get caught on his dilapidated car's rusty door. An item of clothing, a flannel shirt that he was wearing the first day we met, trails behind him, flapping from his backpack, as if it is waving goodbye to me for the last time.

That's the only way I can get my character out the door.