Iceberg, Ahoy!

Today I have been thinking a lot about Sarah Ruhl’s book 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater.

As the title indicates, the book is a series of micro-essays. It is a charming and interesting book. Some of the essays are almost poetry in and of themselves. This is one of my favorites:

11. An essay in praise of smallness

I admire minimalism.

It reminds me of a pretty little iceberg.

I have been thinking about that book because I am in a creative rut right now. In many ways this is less about my creative life than it is about my actual life. For better or worse, I have never been one of those writers who thrives in adversity. Sadly, I am one of those writers who thrives when I’m busy. Some of my most productive writing periods have been when I had non-writing and/or non-academic jobs, working 60+ hours a week and dealing with all kinds of other junk. I’m good at writing when it is a haven. I am bad at writing when my day is wide open. And oh man let me tell you, my life is waaaaay too wide open right now.

I’ve been trying to find a writing project just to get my fingers typing. I wonder if there might be something interested in playing around with what is called “flash nonfiction” because I know nothing about flash nonfiction. I guess I know that it is short and true. Maybe that would be a good name for a project.

This is likely not going to be good writing, but it isn’t supposed to be. If I have learned anything about writing in the nearly four decades I have been alive, it is that most writing isn’t good and a great deal of it shouldn’t even be done with goodness in mind.

And then I remembered that I have this whole website where I can post writing no matter how bad it is! WHAT A WONDERFUL COINCIDENCE!

If you’ll excuse me, now I need to go Google “flash nonfiction” to see what it is. Ig nothing else, I have been reading a lot of nonfiction lately, so at the very least I can start cataloguing interesting information. I don’t know. I know that I just need to be writing more because I am getting a little stir crazy out here in the desert with nothing to do.

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