Words for Stories
  • Crafting Your Story
    • Privacy and Cookies Policy
  • About My Story
    • My Editing and Writing Bookshelf
  • Working Together
    • Collaboration Nuts and Bolts
  • Story Blog
  • How can I help?

Story Blog

Writer@WordsforStories.com

​A Storytelling Serial

​Are you reading this blog on a mobile device? If so and you'd like to subscribe to my occasional postings but don't see a blog sidebar for that option, please head to the bottom of this page on your device for subscription and other sidebar information, including quick links to archives. Thanks for taking the extra time to scroll! ​

A HOLIDAY NONWRITING STORY

1/13/2022

9 Comments

 
A posed picture of two raw potatoes, both given faces. One potato has been stabbed with a miniature fork and lies in a pool of ketchup. The other potato is upright and has a shocked expression.The Great Potato Massacre (photo courtesy of Pixabay.com)
A few days before Thanksgiving, while slicing a potato, I slashed the end of my right ring finger. I’ve hacked many vegetables in my life, and this was the first that ever turned on me. In all fairness to the tuber, I was tired, grumpy, and behind schedule in preparing dinner; so yes, my haste and overconfidence made me careless. I truly have no one to blame but myself, although I continue to eye raw potatoes with suspicion.

The incident involved a lot of blood and cleaning and bandages, that night and throughout the following weeks. It did not entail a trip to the emergency room, because I was tired, grumpy, and behind schedule in preparing dinner, and my husband is my resident medic. Although he had to reapply the gauze wraps many times during the days of my slow recovery, from the start he made them just tight enough to act like stitches—without cutting off my circulation. Quite a skill.

That memorable evening, dinner was indeed late but at least didn’t turn into the midnight meal it would have been if we’d gone to the ER. Afraid and shaky replaced tired and grumpy. With my hand elevated, I forced myself into slow, deep breaths, trying to reduce the blood flow to my finger as adrenaline kicked my heartbeats into overdrive.

Several days later, during one of my rewraps, we were finally able to clean off the blood clots well enough to really see the damage. It was bad; both my husband and I realized that (1) I had come more dangerously close than we initially realized to permanently losing part of my fingertip, (2) I should have given more serious consideration to the emergency room, despite his skill and my reluctance, and (3) I was incredibly lucky the multiple cuts seemed to be healing without infection or actual digital loss.

Now, a bit more than seven weeks after the mishap, my finger borders on miraculous. The forever scar seems small, although the area remains tender. I still can’t tap the keyboard for long; my thin new skin quickly tells me when to stop.


Adaptation and Loss
With help and reprogramming, I had a normal (read: busy) holiday season. My husband took over all the kitchen work that required anything sharper than a butter knife. He also gave me a mandoline for Christmas, making me solemnly vow to immediately learn how to use its safety guard. (How did I survive before YouTube?)

I adapted several tasks, including gift wrapping and driving, to the thumb and three fingers of my right hand, keeping my ring finger perpetually pointed. With my left hand, I pecked out brief emails and scrolled for online gifts. I even managed a laborious one-handed Word document, outlining a blog post that I have yet to finish.   

Because I’m a leftie, I had an advantage. But I’d first started pounding on a typewriter when I was twelve, and since then a large part of my everyday world has depended on using varieties of keyboards—always with ten digits. I deeply missed my right ring finger.

I also developed empathy for all who have, for any reason, lost the use of a body part that previously contributed to an important personal identity.


Good Fortune and Going Retro
I appreciated, though, that the timing of this derailment couldn’t have been better. I had kept my computer-based work schedule clear for the holidays, and my writing goals were (as is often the case) easily dismissed. During such a busy season of the year, blog readers, friends, and family wouldn’t miss my electronic missives.

So I signed cards and gift tags with my left hand. I was barely visible online. And I scribbled more in my journal than I had for a couple of years, which reminded me that writing was a thing long before keyboards were invented.


Resistance and Lessons
That sufficed until I realized my journal entries had become circular. I kept rehashing the same problems, worries, and emotions. Because I was no longer using written stories to connect with others, my unproductive, unstructured, unedited words went nowhere.

Anyone who knows me or reads my blog posts understands that for most of my adult life (starting with walking away from a journalism major in college), I’ve been the All-Time Universal Champion of Writing Resistance. At that level of avoidance, journaling isn’t a writing warmup; it’s a form of writing resistance. Transcribing thoughts into a journal keeps me safely looping through my head while allowing me to check off my daily “write” box.

But that kind of writing, the type that doesn’t require review and revision, isn’t the hard work of human communication. And communicating and connecting beyond myself is the reason I write.

Every January I reread Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. When I get to his “Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it,” I invariably have the same reaction: my soul must really need writing, because I’ve found more ways to Resist than ever imagined by a thousand other writers plus Steven Pressfield put together.

Then, when February starts, I go on to invent a few more Resistance methods. My repertoire grows longer with each passing year.

So it was no surprise that for the first few weeks of my finger’s medical leave, I was secretly relieved I had a legitimate excuse to avoid serious writing. Although I’d like to think my Resistance hasn’t reached a point where I’m subconsciously sabotaging my body, perhaps I was at least trying to get my attention for a much-needed lesson—such as, say, it’s one thing to choose not to do something and an entirely different matter to no longer have the choice.
 
Maybe also: slow down.


Ghosts and Transformation
One of my frequent avenues of Resistance is to wonder why anyone would feel compelled to devote significant energy and effort to something they fight doing. I’ve long noticed the ubiquity of writers taking for granted that their fellow scribes love writing. For years I’ve seen writing circles built on the assumption that despite challenges with time, skill, perfectionism, and fear, writers experience unquestioned enjoyment and are thus naturally drawn to the keyboard. Overarching writerly desire is considered a matter of course, a no-discussion-necessary reason to persist through the surmountable struggles.

And I repeatedly hear the unspoken message: any writer lacking deep devotion is a misfit.

That’s why I regularly return to Steven Pressfield. He gets me. He understands that for some writers, sitting down to share words with others often feels anything but enjoyable. He realizes that even when it’s a bone-deep compulsion, writing can seem more madness than passion. He knows my demons, the doubt (self and otherwise), the imposter syndrome, and my lack of fit in the Real Writers’ Club.

But these past several weeks have also proved that I feel bereft when I don’t write to communicate. I haven’t figured out how to live comfortably with my drive to share written stories, and I can’t be me without the attempt. Writing for human connection is ingrained in every part of my DNA, and its absence feels like losing a fingertip.

Meeting the specter of forced writing limitations hasn’t produced the overnight transformation of Scrooge in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Still, I believe reality includes magic, which makes some sort of change—even deeply entrenched Resistance—possible. I most definitely have been visited by the Ghosts of Writing Past, Present, and Future, and they’ve stirred a new sense of urgency.

Next January, I don’t know what I’ll be writing. It may or may not take a different form than what I’ve done so far. However, I am determined to spend this year handling knives and my writing life with all the care and seriousness they deserve. If I’m really smart, I’ll take nothing for granted.

I might even remember that what I resist may be what I most need, and what I most need can be gone in a slash. 
     
Is there something you need to do but are resisting? How would you feel if suddenly you lost your ability to do it? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. 

9 Comments
Lisa Dailey
1/13/2022 07:12:32 pm

I'm so glad you're ok! Good to see you back online.
I am resisting getting a new job/career/path to better finances. I have been in the same physically demanding job for over a year, and my doctor even says I need to stop working there. But it's so very easy to just stay. One more day...one more day... Just until after Christmas, New Year's, winter, then likely Spring. Change is scary. I might fail. So I stay. Where I'm comfortable, safe, but injuring my elbow, hands, wrists, back, etc. Poor, stuck, undervalued. Indecision about what to do next forces me to stay. Ugh! If I found out I had to stay at this job, not a chance of ever leaving, I think I'd just cry. Is this all I'm meant for? That can't be. But I just turned 55 and time is slipping away.
This is where my brain is, at this very moment. I am smiling at how silly that is.
Lisa

Reply
Ranee Tomlin link
1/14/2022 11:54:49 am

Lisa, thank you for reading and commenting. It's wonderful to hear from you, and boy, you've nailed this resistance thing. You know exactly what you're resisting, why, and how you see your resistance in both the present and the future. I love your self-awareness, which is anything but silly.

That self-awareness might even help you make a change. ("Oh, I know where this fear comes from! It's resistance. Yeah, that's normal. Everybody has it. So I'm going to just make a decision and go for it, thumbing my nose at all the resistance-based feelings.")

Also, support from friends or a like-minded community might keep you pushing past the resistance. It's hard to overcome all those emotions on our own.

And being quite a bit older than you, I completely understand the age pressure. I just keep looking to those who started to really bloom in their seventies and eighties and know I still have time. So do you, my friend.

Reply
Sharon Gamble link
1/13/2022 07:41:23 pm

Ranee, when you DO write ... it's very, very good. Thanks for sharing and reminding me to value what I've been given a bit more. You're right. Life can change so quickly. With one mistaken slash. I want to be more grateful and careful with what I have. (I miss you!)

Reply
Ranee Tomlin link
1/14/2022 12:03:58 pm

Sharon, I've always known you as someone who appreciates all the good in your life—and I've missed hearing about those good things, including your writing projects.

Thank you for taking the time to read and connect, and I'm touched by your kind feedback. I hope to someday hear more about any additional practice of gratitude and care you bring to treasuring what is important to you. And your support is something I've always been grateful for.

Reply
Elizabeth Gauffreau link
1/14/2022 04:13:15 am

I'm so sorry to hear about your injury, Ranee, but glad it's healed. The thought that gave me pause is this one: "And I repeatedly hear the unspoken message: any writer lacking deep devotion is a misfit." Every writer's relationship with writing is different, and other writers in particular need to acknowledge and respect that.

Reply
Ranee Tomlin link
1/14/2022 12:17:56 pm

Liz, you always cut right to the heart of it. Thank you for reading and posting your astute comment. I think this difference complicates the writing community immeasurably. Writers want to be supportive of other writers but have only their own experience to go on. It's hard to see beyond the relationship we know to understand a writing relationship very unlike ours.

And in my case, it's hard to get past envy of writers who have a more loving, comfortable relationship with their work than I do. I do respect their dependable writing enjoyment, though, and I deeply appreciate your pointing out that those writers need to give me more grace when I'm in the throes of resistance.

Reply
Elizabeth Gauffreau link
1/14/2022 03:20:23 pm

Reading Peter Elbow's work in grad school was a big help in understanding that not everyone's writing process (and, by extension, relationship with writing) is the same--and we shouldn't expect it to be.

Then there is the (purported) Dorothy Parker quote: "I hate writing. I love having written."

Ranee Tomlin link
1/14/2022 05:14:45 pm

Well, Liz, now I wish every writer—including me—had been required to read Peter Elbow. I'll look him up ASAP. Thank you for that.

I frequently think of the oft-attributed-to Dorothy Parker quote, and I wonder where to find writers who feel that way today. It seems a common sentiment from writers of previous generations, and I rarely encounter its admission anymore.

Maybe I should form the Dorothy Parker writing support group!

Reply
Elizabeth Gauffreau link
1/14/2022 05:29:47 pm

You're welcome, Ranee! Please let me know what you think of Elbow's work. I'll bet you'd get some takers for the Dorothy Parker support group. (I think there are those of like mind out there; they just don't admit it.)




Leave a Reply.


    ​Author

    Ranee Boyd Tomlin: 
    Story Supporter, Word Wonk, Lifelong Learner

    Thanks for subscribing to my email list.

    * indicates required
    Email Format

    You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of my emails. For information about my privacy practices, please scroll to the bottom of any page on my website and click "Read My Privacy and Cookies Policy."

    I use Mailchimp as my marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Categories

    All
    Creativity Lessons
    Language Lessons
    Lessons About Working
    Lessons For Learning
    Lessons For Life Choices
    Lessons In Being A Writer

    Archives

    July 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    October 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    August 2017
    June 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    August 2015

READ MY PRIVACY AND COOKIES POLICY.

Copyright © 2023 Words for Stories. All rights reserved.
  • Crafting Your Story
    • Privacy and Cookies Policy
  • About My Story
    • My Editing and Writing Bookshelf
  • Working Together
    • Collaboration Nuts and Bolts
  • Story Blog
  • How can I help?