Writing as Therapy and Vocation

I have been doing some reading – mostly about writing. I have also been doing some writing, though nothing that I intend on publishing. I’ve gone Jungian (well, I’ve been courting an archetype and doing a dance with it).

It is an exercise in torturing this one character (not a specific character as much as a type). It’s not a hero, but wouldn’t feature as the Big Bad in a story either. The character is a study in red herring – a distraction, an interruption to muddle a journey for the hero of the piece.

A trickster, a jokester, a minor demon in a pantheon of gods and demigods, this character is more an archetype that I am toying with it so I can use it later.  It’s not always the same person. I use a variety of influences for an infinite array of annoying little rats. They pop their pin heads into the action and turn it into a bizarre circus -- and then there's panic, fear, self-loathing, and horror.

The idea is that I need to keep writing even if it’s not something marketable. I am honing my skill because practice makes better (perfect is a fantasy).

In the middle of a blizzard, I could contemplate ways to castigate while I waited for the ice cream I made earlier to harden in the freezer. This is awesome, considering we started the year in the midst of a plumbing emergency.

I tried to document the emotional toil of that adventure, but I found it was stressful though hardly interesting. The problem, in my estimation, is not that the scene lacked drama but rather that I was too close to it. It was too soon to look at it with clinical detachment.

You can imagine how leaving the Food Goddess with a kitchen without a stove and a fridge transcends the totality of Greek tragedies!   

While there was some stress involved, I believe I met it with enough levity that it dulled the inner fanfare and the virtual Greek chorus of keeners. 

A person who imagines a virtual Greek chorus of keeners who, in my head, goes from the solemn and turns into a funky tribal dance will always have trouble depicting serious drama. Apparently, I can find jocularity everywhere I go, no matter where life takes me.

Ultimately, the Snowmageddon they promised us didn’t affect us – there appears to be less than a few inches on the ground. My first batch of ice cream was a disaster, but as soon as we go out to get cream and some fruit, I’ll try again. 

We have sprung a leak from the skylight over the stairs on our landing. This may lead up to a whole new level of drama and an opportunity to write about the dangers inherent in that! The likelihood, though, is that I’ll find a way to have the contractor’s pants fall off as he reaches the top of the ladder, and mooning us all in lacy thong… 

It may not make for something I can package and sell, but it is awesome therapy and it keeps me writing and learning and surviving. The odds are someday I will use all of it. For now, the writing serves me well: my sanity demands it.