I am at my favorite writing hole this morning. Plans for Second Sunday cancelled due to weather. I'm a little concerned that there are so few people here again this morning, worried that the perfect ass to table ratio space conducive to writing will close for lack of business. Absolute and stark contrast to the vibrant place I dined last weekend with a friend. I am not a business oriented person, far from it. Research nerd remember? Even I have felt my writing place sliding into the abyss for months now.
As I'm walking in to the establishment it finally hits me, what is happening here - and yes it gives me even more concern. This place is dying. Oh, it used to be alive, with specials daily and food porn postings in social media. Now it just feels stuck, flat and unimaginative. The food, the staff, the indifference of it palpable.
And because I was raised on compare and contrast questions in school.....
The place I ate last weekend, which does NOT have the perfect ass to table ratio for writing, felt alive. It breathed and there was a tangible excitement in the place. The food, gorgeously constructed. The staff genuine and friendly. Everyone excited to be there. Food choices revolve there daily on the chef owner's whim and the local availability of ingredients. Their is true passion and artistry here. And those things are fed a steady diet of what do you need.
My writing hole does none of these things. They used to, but they have forgotten how to feed their business. As a result it grows stale as soda crackers left out on a humid day.
The reason this feels like a big revelation is that I don't know that I have ever thought of my job or my passions in exactly this way before - as living breathing organisms. But I will from now on. I see what happens when you feed your passion and when you just let it coast. So today I am spending some time asking what they need. In particular, the book. What do you need my love? What can I do to coax you forward again?
I really want that to be born. Second to finding a job. Just behind caring for the mama. I want this. Looking in drop box shows me that in the last six months I have written on it only once. I know that some research is needed, but this has become a kind of avoidance. Oddly the avoidance and drop off in writing started about the same time that my writing hole started its slide. The energy so contagious that it contributed to the stagnation. Oh, I am not blaming them. My life has been a series of seven holy hells this past year. I feel lucky just to be alive at the end of that. I saw what was happening here, but still I kept coming Sunday after Sunday and writing, scribbling, ranting really. Gone the weekends of 10K words where I felt wrung out and happy. I have been lucky to do more than an hour of drivel with the odd poem tossed out in five minutes. This is how I justified shelving my love? I failed to see any connection among these things. My writing hole, such as it was, the life line to writing anything at all and I clung to it fiercely. I would/will NEVER let go of writing. But my writing needs better energetic and physical support from an environment, from me. So, now I see that a new writing venue is in order.
My life is in major shakeup mode again. But I have never felt more clear and sure of an outcome. Of a successful outcome. Giddayup!
...and who knows maybe when the writing hole closes, I can buy a booth and set it up in my home. Hey don't underestimate the ass to table ratio for good writing.
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