The Journey Continues
Now that I'm into my second year on this journey, I'm still dealing with some fallout from the A. Primarily, I've still not written much of anything on the fiction front. I've written blog post, how to, some theology stuff, non-fiction in general. But to date, since dday, I've written a total of one short story and 4 or 5 chapters on a new novel back in Nov. And that's it.
But I've also felt of late that I'm close to getting back to that. But I'm still sort of blocked about it. And I've been giving this a lot of thought as to why, and some things are clearer now.
One thing I've always felt might be blocking me on this, is I'm having trouble feeling that I can achieve a balance between writing and attention to my wife. Most of the time when she would come in and start talking, and I wouldn't respond with much more than a "uh hu," which to her said I wasn't listening, which was partly true since I'm not a good multitasker, that was part of the cause of her feeling I didn't pay much attention to her, didn't feel what she had to say was worth my time, etc. But what really was happening was I would get so sucked into what I was doing, what I was writing about, that I tend to block out most everything else. I've always been that way on stuff like that. So it was always like pulling teeth to extract myself from what I was doing to really pay attention to her.
And I'm scared of getting back into that dynamic again. And I don't want to scare her into thinking we are returning to the old way of doing things.
I realized recently also why I might be concerned about all this. Back when her affair started, when she said she felt the most distant from me, and sometimes my presence even annoyed her, back in Oct. 2010, was the time period I was heavy into writing a set of short stores that would go into a book. Nine of them to be precise. About one a week, send it to my crit partner, and get it back, then edit it. I was heavily into that mode during that month, and it is that month that she felt distant from me, and the first OM started setting his hook in her.
And that's the deal. When I get into a writing mode, I really get into a writing mode, and until I'm finished, everything else gets blocked out. I'm just a very focused person on what I'm doing. And writing requires a good bit of concentration. And I don't know how to not do that. So I think I have this internal fear that if I get back into writing, I'll naturally go back into that mode, and in due time, will have periods where I'm pretty much ignoring her to get something done, and our marriage will suffer, and it will tempt her again if someone comes along ready to pay attention to her.
So I'm still trying to work out how to do this and not let it get away into a total obsession as it has in the past. Keep in mind, this isn't so much a conscious thing, but a sub-conscious fear I think I'm feeling.
But something hit me recently. And maybe that's because in the natural course of things I've been spending less time on DS than I was before. But from the time I resigned my pastorate in 1996, until I started writing in 2005, I felt a lack of purpose to my life. I've always wanted to do more than just exist and live and die, and that's it. I watched my parents go to work, come home and eat and watch TV, go to bed and wake up to do the whole thing all over again. It seemed so pointless to me. Like just existing until you die. I wanted more than that. I wanted to feel I was making a difference. And that is probably one of the reasons I became a minister, feeling like I could help people in their spiritual journey, which had eternal significance.
So when I resigned my pastorate, and over time it became obvious I wasn't going to return to that, I felt a real loss of purpose. I was just going to work, coming home, spending some time on the computer while I ate, go to bed, and get up to do it all over again. Almost like my parents except for the TV part. Because I'd gotten a job as a bookkeeper, and while one can make the case they are helping folk, it still seems like doing mostly the same things over and over again, and there isn't any lasting significance to it. So I reconciled a bank account. Whoopee. That really left a lasting effect upon lives. Not!
So during that period of time, from 1996 to 2005, I had regular bouts of dealing with this sense of aimlessness, like I wasn't doing anything really to help people. Not that I didn't. I did post on religious forums and help people there. And that helped for a period of time, but it wasn't enough. I wanted my job to have significance. And it didn't. So I regularly had periods of lamenting that I was just existing, of feeling like I wasn't getting anywhere.
Then in 2005, I discovered that I had a desire to write fiction. And that while I couldn't use that so much to "preach" to people, it was a good vehicle to help people see different perspectives on life. You get into the head of someone different and see life through their eyes. That's something no non-fiction can hope to do. To experience life, rather than just write about life.
And I saw that if I invested myself in writing, learning to do it, that it could help to leave my mark on the world, all the while building a job I could continue to do into my retirement years (since I had no retirement plan, I needed something). With my writing, I felt like I had a purpose again, and in time, it could become my job.
Well, as you can imagine, now being over 13 months since dday and not having written much at all on the creative writing front, that sense of just existing is starting to come back. I think it was held off to some degree by my posting on these boards. Helping others getting through this stuff as I've learned about it for myself. And part of the desire to write a book on the experience.
But there is something that doesn't quite jive with all that. Since dday, I've written a lot of non-fiction. A how-to book, many blog posts, not to mention the articles I put on the Healing Infidelity Through Faith group and all the post I've made on these forums (which I've been accused of writing a book at times!) ;) So it's not like I haven't been writing at all. I'm doing that right now.
It's just for some reason I've had a hard time getting back to writing fiction. Is it getting sucked into another life and world that I fear? Is it more a guilt by association? That's what I was writing when this all started to happen and it kept me blissfully ignorant of if?
So I think what I need to do is force myself to write. And since I'm unemployed, treat it as my job. Why not, I've got nothing else to do in that vein. If it hadn't been for the A, more than likely that's what I would have done from the time I started being unemployed. But I never expected it to last this long. I've never been unemployed for such a long period of time.
So I think what I'm going to do is try and experiment at least. Here's my plan. Get up by 8 am, eat breakfast, etc, and be ready to go by around 9. Then spend from 9 to noon, at a minimum, focused only on writing fiction. If I go longer, all good. But that block of time is set aside specifically for writing. Then after noon passes, eat lunch, and I can respond to emails, talk with my W, read blog posts, all that normal stuff I tend to do that I see as part marketing and part keeping my finger on the pulse of things in writing. I can also work on editing, writing non-fiction, or other tasks as needed. But the time from waking up until noon is fiction writing time. Even if all I do is stare at the screen and think all morning.
But my W is not used to hearing from me until around 11 to noon anyway, so I can focus all I want during that time and not feel I'm ignoring her. She's busy working and doesn't usually contact me until around lunch time anyway.
By the end of next week, I hope I should be able to tell if that will work. And then I'll make a commitment to continue. And see if I can prime this pump and get it going again. I'll make a commitment to report back this time next week to let you know what has happened at this "new job" I've signed up for. :)
But I've also felt of late that I'm close to getting back to that. But I'm still sort of blocked about it. And I've been giving this a lot of thought as to why, and some things are clearer now.
One thing I've always felt might be blocking me on this, is I'm having trouble feeling that I can achieve a balance between writing and attention to my wife. Most of the time when she would come in and start talking, and I wouldn't respond with much more than a "uh hu," which to her said I wasn't listening, which was partly true since I'm not a good multitasker, that was part of the cause of her feeling I didn't pay much attention to her, didn't feel what she had to say was worth my time, etc. But what really was happening was I would get so sucked into what I was doing, what I was writing about, that I tend to block out most everything else. I've always been that way on stuff like that. So it was always like pulling teeth to extract myself from what I was doing to really pay attention to her.
And I'm scared of getting back into that dynamic again. And I don't want to scare her into thinking we are returning to the old way of doing things.
I realized recently also why I might be concerned about all this. Back when her affair started, when she said she felt the most distant from me, and sometimes my presence even annoyed her, back in Oct. 2010, was the time period I was heavy into writing a set of short stores that would go into a book. Nine of them to be precise. About one a week, send it to my crit partner, and get it back, then edit it. I was heavily into that mode during that month, and it is that month that she felt distant from me, and the first OM started setting his hook in her.
And that's the deal. When I get into a writing mode, I really get into a writing mode, and until I'm finished, everything else gets blocked out. I'm just a very focused person on what I'm doing. And writing requires a good bit of concentration. And I don't know how to not do that. So I think I have this internal fear that if I get back into writing, I'll naturally go back into that mode, and in due time, will have periods where I'm pretty much ignoring her to get something done, and our marriage will suffer, and it will tempt her again if someone comes along ready to pay attention to her.
So I'm still trying to work out how to do this and not let it get away into a total obsession as it has in the past. Keep in mind, this isn't so much a conscious thing, but a sub-conscious fear I think I'm feeling.
But something hit me recently. And maybe that's because in the natural course of things I've been spending less time on DS than I was before. But from the time I resigned my pastorate in 1996, until I started writing in 2005, I felt a lack of purpose to my life. I've always wanted to do more than just exist and live and die, and that's it. I watched my parents go to work, come home and eat and watch TV, go to bed and wake up to do the whole thing all over again. It seemed so pointless to me. Like just existing until you die. I wanted more than that. I wanted to feel I was making a difference. And that is probably one of the reasons I became a minister, feeling like I could help people in their spiritual journey, which had eternal significance.
So when I resigned my pastorate, and over time it became obvious I wasn't going to return to that, I felt a real loss of purpose. I was just going to work, coming home, spending some time on the computer while I ate, go to bed, and get up to do it all over again. Almost like my parents except for the TV part. Because I'd gotten a job as a bookkeeper, and while one can make the case they are helping folk, it still seems like doing mostly the same things over and over again, and there isn't any lasting significance to it. So I reconciled a bank account. Whoopee. That really left a lasting effect upon lives. Not!
So during that period of time, from 1996 to 2005, I had regular bouts of dealing with this sense of aimlessness, like I wasn't doing anything really to help people. Not that I didn't. I did post on religious forums and help people there. And that helped for a period of time, but it wasn't enough. I wanted my job to have significance. And it didn't. So I regularly had periods of lamenting that I was just existing, of feeling like I wasn't getting anywhere.
Then in 2005, I discovered that I had a desire to write fiction. And that while I couldn't use that so much to "preach" to people, it was a good vehicle to help people see different perspectives on life. You get into the head of someone different and see life through their eyes. That's something no non-fiction can hope to do. To experience life, rather than just write about life.
And I saw that if I invested myself in writing, learning to do it, that it could help to leave my mark on the world, all the while building a job I could continue to do into my retirement years (since I had no retirement plan, I needed something). With my writing, I felt like I had a purpose again, and in time, it could become my job.
Well, as you can imagine, now being over 13 months since dday and not having written much at all on the creative writing front, that sense of just existing is starting to come back. I think it was held off to some degree by my posting on these boards. Helping others getting through this stuff as I've learned about it for myself. And part of the desire to write a book on the experience.
But there is something that doesn't quite jive with all that. Since dday, I've written a lot of non-fiction. A how-to book, many blog posts, not to mention the articles I put on the Healing Infidelity Through Faith group and all the post I've made on these forums (which I've been accused of writing a book at times!) ;) So it's not like I haven't been writing at all. I'm doing that right now.
It's just for some reason I've had a hard time getting back to writing fiction. Is it getting sucked into another life and world that I fear? Is it more a guilt by association? That's what I was writing when this all started to happen and it kept me blissfully ignorant of if?
So I think what I need to do is force myself to write. And since I'm unemployed, treat it as my job. Why not, I've got nothing else to do in that vein. If it hadn't been for the A, more than likely that's what I would have done from the time I started being unemployed. But I never expected it to last this long. I've never been unemployed for such a long period of time.
So I think what I'm going to do is try and experiment at least. Here's my plan. Get up by 8 am, eat breakfast, etc, and be ready to go by around 9. Then spend from 9 to noon, at a minimum, focused only on writing fiction. If I go longer, all good. But that block of time is set aside specifically for writing. Then after noon passes, eat lunch, and I can respond to emails, talk with my W, read blog posts, all that normal stuff I tend to do that I see as part marketing and part keeping my finger on the pulse of things in writing. I can also work on editing, writing non-fiction, or other tasks as needed. But the time from waking up until noon is fiction writing time. Even if all I do is stare at the screen and think all morning.
But my W is not used to hearing from me until around 11 to noon anyway, so I can focus all I want during that time and not feel I'm ignoring her. She's busy working and doesn't usually contact me until around lunch time anyway.
By the end of next week, I hope I should be able to tell if that will work. And then I'll make a commitment to continue. And see if I can prime this pump and get it going again. I'll make a commitment to report back this time next week to let you know what has happened at this "new job" I've signed up for. :)
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