Multiply all that by 10 and you have the internal monologue around my book. Actually what the internal monologue goes like it lying down at night and being gripped in the chest by a paralyzing sense of fear and dread around it. Or sitting down to do some work on it, that you've felt so guilty about for so long, and being so scared, so overwhelmed you can't lift a finger to do a thing. And so at bedtime again, that's how you feel. And so on and so forth.
And sometimes its also the relentlessness of life that gets in the way. Writing takes work. Writing also takes time. There's some writing that can be done in short grasped bursts of an hour or less. That can be picked up and left off fairly easily. There's other writing that needs the dip in for a moment, tinker about with it, walk away and come back. Like moving pieces of a frustrating jigsaw. There's writing that can be dashed off in an hour (never have I ever written a theatre review like that *drinks*) or late at night, or early in the morning, or on a lunch break (drinks again).
But other writing there is no answer for but time. To give time and space to write it. Day after day and be absorbed in it. And there's no easy way to that sometimes.
And this is a book. A huge hill of a book, about a huge hill of a play. A complex downright son-of-an-Angel of a play that I'm frequently convinced not even the playwright fully understands. It's just a LOT.
And the honest truth is I think I'm not good enough. That as a failed academic my book will fail as well. That it won't pass the peer review, which is a very real and honest fear not one of hyperbole. I don't have access to academic resources. I don't have and never have had the ability to write academically.
But I had to go with an academic press, because that's the only place that would have me. I'm not connected enough to get another publisher interested. So academic it was for the person who never ever wanted to write an academic book. I wanted to write a book that everyone can read and understand. I still intend to write something like that.
People keep telling me to self-publish. But that feels like another failure to clock up.
And either way I haven't even been able to write it. Barely a word despite having so much to say.
And that's in part because it also takes time. And sometimes life is a LOT as well. I was able to start this whole thing because I found myself unemployed. But the problem of that is I've been without a 'proper' job for around 18 months now. And it, in all honesty, is a blessing and a curse. A blessing yes in that it's allowed me to indulge in much of this, and other projects. A curse, because income and employment have remained a constant battle, a constant worry.
And while many wonderful things have come my way- and continue to- because I stepped off the full-time long term job treadmill (involuntarily at the time). But the 'hustle' of finding new opportunities, while bearing fruits of opportunities, and while that is brilliant...is time-consuming. Short term projects with short term deadlines keep taking over from the long term project book. And it's always the first to be pushed and the last to be picked up again. And the longer that happens, the harder it is to get going again.
And don't think I don't see and feel the judgments. The 'she hasn't got a real job' the 'what's wrong with her that she can't get a job' And the idea of what I 'should be' by now. That I should have a 'real' job, that I should be doing better. That I should be better. That I shouldn't be 'slacking' and should 'get on with getting a job'.
But I reconsidered this while having coffee with a fellow PhD survivor this week. Like me, they are in a bit of a 'time out' moment. Somewhere between the old and the new. And actually, the idea that we all need to pause, recover and take stock before moving on to the next is an important one. I barrelled on through from PGCE, to PhD (full time, working jobs to support it) to two years of full-time jobs while still trying to be an academic. And if two years of part-time work, and trying to make other stuff work is what it takes to move onto the next, then that's what it's going to be.
Because also the book is tied up in all that. The damage that was done by the PhD, by putting your all into a thing, and into a system that spits you out at the other end. And leaves you with nothing.
In its own way, this time out to write the book- and do the other things- is my time to heal from that. It might sound self-indulgent from the outside, but I know there are those who have experienced it who will understand, what exactly that system does to you. I wish I'd taken time out sooner for my mental health.
But the book too is I think part of that healing from academia. It's both a thing I have to do and a bridge to the next stages. And for me Angels as a play was and is symbolic of the transition between old and new. Had that revival not happened, had I not got the help I'd gotten from that production, I'd have walked away from both academia and theatre at that moment. Instead, I'm clinging onto both- not unlike the Angels in the play- in some nowhere land in between.
And so to labour a metaphor, the book is in me, like it's in Prior in the play. And I need to find a way to get it out of me and return it to wherever the fuck it came from.
It's such a complicated thing. Maybe for others, it isn't. Maybe for others it's a simple write it or don't I don't know.
When I sat down to write this for some reason 'Move On' from Sunday in the Park with George popped into my head. And the lesson from that song seems apt.
'Anything you do let it come from you, then it will be true'
I think of that often in writing fiction. But it applies equally to this kind of work. I might not write the greatest analysis of this play ever to be committed to paper. But I will write one with heart and truth of its own. I'm not writing it to prove anyone else wrong. Or to prove I'm the best at anything. I'm writing it because I have things to say.
That song isn't so much about leaving something behind, but moving forward wherever it takes you. And that there's nowhere to go but forward. Much like Kushner's 'The World Only Spins Foreward'
So what now?
Well for the first time in a long time on Friday, I didn't go to be gripped by panic. I did some work. I printed out 2/3 of what I've written. And I read it. And I made notes.
Then today I made some more notes. Some post-its. And something resembling a plan.
More importantly, I made the decision not only to 'finish' it in whatever form that might take. But also gave myself permission to. I let myself take the pressure off to 'fix' everything and 'get a proper job' and instead realise that I took this time to write this thing (and yes other things) and not finishing is more failure than not getting a 'proper' job again in any arbitrary timescale. In the scheme of things, a few more months getting by and finishing the work won't hurt. And the truth is maybe I'm not ready to go back to full time 'big' jobs yet either. Maybe I've got a bit more putting myself back together to do, and maybe the book is part of that.
Alongside it, I started a 'secret' creative side project. One that's nothing to do with anything I'm striving for career-wise. It's not for anyone else, it's not for anything currently. It's just creative writing. And doing that as my 'side project' is also fuelling me again. Getting me excited to do something again.
Meanwhile the book I'm giving time to again. Which is all I can do really. And take on Sondheim's wisdom once again
'Look at what you want, not at where you are'
And
'If you can know where you're going, you've gone, just keep moving on'
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