Subject to Change
I enjoy a fairly flexible non-writing
work schedule, so the flow of my days is changeable, which is fitting. I am not
an organized or systematic person, with writing or anything else. I write when
I write, I suppose, and how and why and where.
I might say my designated workspace is
a Microsoft Surface laptop and wherever I sit. Right now, it’s the carpet. I
don’t have an office or a desk. I hope to tuck one into the alcove at the end
of my hall, but that is future fodder.
A surprising amount of composition happens
in my car. I don’t make phone calls while I drive. I don’t listen to the radio.
I listen to the wheels—four on the car, more in my head—to the contacts they
make, how they run, where they hum. Sometimes I pray. Sometimes I rehearse
phrases I’ve just realized so they won’t slip away. Sometimes I wonder why I
don’t listen to the radio anymore.
The flesh and soul of my work emerge
and fuse during lengthy drafting sessions. This is my favorite part of the
writing process. I tap into lightning; the current sparks and ebbs where it
will, and I am its witness. A scribe. I don’t eat. I don’t break. I sprout
color. I combust. I love finishing first drafts this way. Still, I don’t mind harnessing
fire with kite and key when necessary. I don’t know if either method produces better
results than the other, but those inspired, gloriously intensive marathons lift
the act of writing to another realm for me. I don’t come down from them until I
reread what I’ve written, usually several days or weeks later. This is when the
scars and misfires declare themselves. This is where the work of writing
begins.
Revision and I don’t always graft. We
row and slam doors and I walk away for air and space and sometimes see other
people, but when we find each other on the same page, it is beautiful. As with
most partnerships, we don’t really know what we’re doing until we’ve done it. It
takes time, reversal, reflex, sacrifice. And lots of paper. When I believe a
piece is ready, I print and read it. I catch the odd typo this way, but mostly
I am listening for the music of the work. Playing by ear. I tune. I print
again. I fine-tune. Print again. So on, until I read the piece and know that
somebody might be able to improve it, but that someone isn’t me.
All of this happens at any point in any
day, but there are patterns. Drafting is a morning or weekend affair. Editing
or adding to an unfinished draft: afternoons and evenings. Weeknights are
devoted to reading for The Lascaux Review and submitting my own work. And
yes, wasting more time than I’d like to admit checking Duotrope to see where my
current submissions stand. Or may stand. Or fall. It’s all prognostication so I
don’t know why I bother. I guess it’s human to wonder.
I read journals at night, too, in
addition to momentary batches of stories or poems I run across during the day.
Some of this is research, some of it is in support of writers I’ve met via
Twitter, to champion their work. One thing I’ve not done in a long time, at any
hour, is read a book. I have several in mind—contemporary and classic—but I’m
waiting. I’m looking for unimpeded, unrushed time. For distance from scouring
for craft. I want the feast delights of reading, its thunder and whispers. It’s
not about what I read, but how. And not “if,” just “when.”
I
often fall asleep beside my laptop at night, or find that I can’t focus on what
words mean anymore, and I close everything down. Midnight is the standard hour,
but like everything else, this is subject to change.
Laurel Miram is an American short fiction writer, essayist, and poet.
Her work appears in Nixes Mate Review and is forthcoming in OPEN:
Journal of Arts & Letters and the Eastern Iowa Review. She is
the short fiction winner of So to Speak Journal’s 2019 contest issue.
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