Have I abandoned this place altogether?

Oh, go on with your fabulous self.
Ben Hassett for Harper’s Bazaar UK Magazine, IMAXtree

I don’t want to de-blog, but it is one of the few things I have going at this stage in my life that seems fine to let slide. And so slide it must.

Once in a while, I think of something that seems relevant to capture here, but putting together a post means forgoing work on the novel, and that’s just not something I’m keen to do right now. I am so ready to be finished with the novel and ready to be working on other projects. The next novel is lurking in the background, poised for me to give it shape. But I am determined to get this one wrapped up first.

Earlier this week I came upon this quote from Cate Blanchett, from Harper’s Bazaar UK:

“I was trying to explain to someone yesterday that the decisions you make as an actor have to be instinctual, it has to come alive between you and the other actors. Maybe because I am a goldfish, when a shoot ends I leave behind the reasons I’ve done what I have done. To come back six months later and dredge all that stuff up for publicity is difficult.”

So there’s no obvious or direct parallel between her response to publicity and my private writings, but this did feel like a familiar sensation to me – being fully immersed in a project as it unfolds and releasing it completely when it concludes. Then later – submitting it in a workshop, for example – feeling detached from the work. Once enough time elapses, my stories begin to feel slightly alien to me, like, that came from me? The incredulity is sometimes positive, as in a story seeming better than I thought.

Of course there are also stories so very bad that I am not sure anything could induce me to revisit them. And yet, I can’t bring myself to delete them. Why? Their continued presence on my hard drive seems optimistic, or perhaps delusional – one day, when I am gone, someone will find them and…

…what? They will say, my god, this person sure wrote a lot of crap. And if they hold me in any esteem, they’ll do me the favor of deleting it all, unread.