Why We're All Zombies and Nobody Plants Trees Anymore

Somewhere along the continuum of human evolution, inertia burrowed its way into our genes. Advocates of XY&Z movements (environmental, social justice, organic food, you name it) fight against inertia and have systems for it. For example, tree hugging organizations send me free mailing labels. Does this make a lot of sense? How we fight complacency, apathy, call it what you will, sends us down all kinds of incongruent paths.

Jonathan Franzen is on book tour for his new novel, "Purity," which received a decent review in the NYT. In an interview on Fresh Air, he spoke of writing in a journal. This is a practice many writers undertake to keep the words flowing, to flush the mental crap away, to discover, to weep, to just write SOMETHING. I've tried it with fleeting intentions. (Let's not make any comparisons here between my journaling and blogging habits. For public disclosure, I'm a better blogger.)

He was talking about journaling because he's used it through difficult spells of noveling. By writing in the journal, he saw patterns of thoughts, so similiar that sometimes he'd write the exact words, months apart. Where did this take him? Perhaps nowhere mentally, but in the physical act, maybe somewhere, 50 pages. Or flip that, maybe nowhere physically, because he couldn't use the material in a book, but mentally he might have come to a place of ahh, that's what's bugging me. That's my take on his state of arrival or non-arrival.

I often feel myself circling around and around my thoughts and never inching out of the wagon ruts. The inertia is maddening. It's endemic though. I think it's why zombies are popular. We see ourselves in the walking corpses, not advancing, not thinking, not feeling, not really living, just gobbling up fragrant shit placed within whiffing distance (my slam on the media/advertising); and it's why we don't think planting a tree really accomplishes anything. What difference can one damn tree make? Ha, I tell you, ha and ha and ha.

Recently, I had two dead spruces removed from my yard. They were brittle ghosts of themselves, waiting for a good bolt to go out in a blaze. It was the right thing to do, to remove them. But. Now my yard is less two trees. Days after or before the trees left the property, The Arbor Day Foundation sent me a "free gift voucher." If I fill out a Survey Questionnaire (redundant, no?) and send in $10, I'll receive 10 free trees. I'm flabbergasted to think this actually makes the organization any money. A survey and $10 covers the expense of the trees and shipping them to me? How can this be?

Okay, so maybe the info they'll learn about me in the survey is invaluable leverage to use for future solicitations. I get that. However, I'm tempted to see if this really works. Would it move me a little off my inert butt? Make me a committed environmentalist? What if I awake one morning to find 10 tree starts on my front door? Wouldn't that be something? Would it be worth the flood of solicitation mail that would eventually follow and the zero net-gain of planting the trees? How many mailing labels can one tree negate? How many of the 10 will survive?

I'm probably better off recycling the solicitation and buying my own trees. Maybe I'm better off not journaling and wasting the paper. Maybe I'm better off saving the electricity instead of blogging in circular fashion about whether my carbon footprint can be improved. But then? Where would my inertia place me? With the zombies.

Take Criticism at Face-Value, An Opinion

My father didn't come to a reading I gave in my hometown.

Hoorah for Friends.

That's a sentence I'd never thought would show up here, let alone congeal in my own mind.

Let's break this down, for if a blog is worth a cent, it should be for breaking down uncharted territory (at least today it is; at least in the last year it has been for me; you do what you want on your own blog).

Fact one, my father and I have a good, if not arm's length relationship. Fact two, we love one another as finely as any daddy-daughter could love one another. Fact three, people around the small town where I grew up like him. He's a swell guy. Honest, hard-working, appreciates tools and old cars. Fact four, he loves me, loves my kids, generally enjoys retirement and reading. We don't talk by phone every week (mom and I do), but we call when necessary.

He has not read my book. Or, if he has, he has not spoken of it.

What do I make of all this? I've generally lumped it into a category another writer defined for me in 2009, the year I began writing my book -- the Silent Group. She said some people will know of your work, even read it or attempt to read it, and remain mum. Never speak of it, never offer an opinion, never a word of praise or acknowledgment or criticism. Which, in and of itself, is an opinion. It's the opinion, "The work is not for me."

I know the work is not for my dad, chiefly because I've written sex into the book. It's part of the novel. It's not all of the novel, but it is a large enough part of it to be disagreeable to him. I understand this.

One of the lessons I've learned as a writer, particularly in the post-publication phase, is that my work is not for everyone. I didn't set out to please the masses. I set out to please myself. This may or may not, in the eyes of commerical publishing interests, be a good plan for success. Genre fiction evolved for a reason: because it is pleasingly familiar and readers tend to gravitate to formulas. Just take a look at any new movie coming out of Hollywood. They're surprisingly similiar. Familiar. And, in many ways, stale.

I'm not saying my work is a grand slam of fresh ideas or craft. But I didn't stick to a genre romance formula. Partly because I didn't know enough, partly because once I knew, I didn't want to follow the "rules."

Now, I move on. My writing is evolving. It leans toward literary. Yawners, for some people. Pissy sales, most likely. Complicated characters, interior dialogue, and lack of action? Who in the hell reads books without an explosion, death, or bondage any more? I still don't think my father will read my new work. I've cozied up to the fact that he won't. It's okay. It's just another opinion.

The List-Led Life

My life boils down to lists.

Things I will do
Things I should do
Things I wish I did better
Things I want to do but never will

Where is happiness in this list of lists?

The challenge for me is to reframe the lists. Lists imply work must be done and it isn't. There's always something to be checked off. Or, if I reframe, a list can show progress. "Look, I crossed it off my list." Bad part is, the finished work always begets more to do.

Wiser people advise to create lists that represent accomplishable goals. Here's an example of how NOT to do this. My literary list for August includes:

Publish (insert Title 1)
Publish (insert Title 2)
Publish (insert Title 3)

Really? Publish three books in a month (new for me because I'm not an indie author, yet)? (Maybe the list should be Become An Indie Author). Problem here: The task is too large. Therefore, it becomes unattainable. Therefore, it becomes an impossible psychologoical hurdle. Therefore, it doesn't get done.

Result: I'm bad at writing lists.
Ergo: How will I make it as an indie author?

A better list might read:

Reread and edit first chapter of (insert Title 1)
Find layout designer for (insert Title 2)
Write synopsis for (insert Title 3)

My mind knows this breakdown already, the steps to be taken in order to publish Title 1, 2 and 3, but writing it down in smaller steps makes it seem more accomplishable.

Unless you are a procrastinator. Then, lists are meaningless and become detestable reminders of non-productivity. Coffee and food soil them. They end up on the far reaches of your desk. The White Board of Accountability becomes the neice's doodle easel.

Fortunately, I'm not a procrastinor. But that may be why you're here. You are ignoring your own list to be pleasantly distracted by the shining object of your electronic device and the promise of some morsel of knowledge that will make not accomplishing your list worth the wasted time.

Hope this was.

My new list:

Find the happiness.