Michelle Arnold
My patient content manager here at Patheos gently reminded me recently that it has been a while since I last dropped in some content. I’d been experiencing some life events over the last six months that severely impacted my creative output, which was why I hadn’t been working. When I got to thinking about it though, I realized that not “working” isn’t the same thing as not “writing.”
I write all the time, to be honest (with myself). I write a bit every day for Facebook, either on my personal page or on my public page. I also participate regularly on Facebook pages as a commenter, either on friends’ pages or on my favorite public pages. And, for the past few years, I’ve also been fiddling around with completely un-publishable fiction on the Notes app of my iPhone and iPad. I’ve ventured into seeing if I can create publishable stories around one of the characters I’ve created, but every time I start to think that I should get off my Notes app, sit down at the laptop, and start to actually write….
I fall apart creatively.
It’s work. Writing, when done well, when done for an audience, is hard work. And I’ve been living with chronic depression, made worse by life events that have left me reeling.
On the positive side though, even un-publishable scribbling can have value. Even while just fiddling around with words, and sentences, and paragraphs I know are Not Good Fiction, even Very Bad Fiction, I’ve learned a lot. Having been a reader, writer, and editor for many years, I’m under no illusion that what I’ve written should see daylight. But I certainly know these characters very well now. If I’m ever in a place to plant my butt in a chair and my fingers on a keyboard, I know the fictional people I’ll write about. And I’ve poured out a lot of thoughts about everything I’ve gone through over the past three years.
Scribbling Very Bad Fiction can sometimes be Cheap Therapy.
When my content manager came calling though, I had to decide if I wanted to continue to actually work as a writer. And I realized I did. The problem was figuring out what to talk about on my maiden re-entry into Real Writing. So, I decided to talk about the writing I’ve been doing all along as cheap therapy. And, in the spirit of appreciating the value of scribbling, I decided to share some recent scribbles from my Facebook pages on Current Events.
On the Titan submersible tragedy….
I did not need to find out what happened to the Titanic submersible by seeing “Crushed like a beer can” in large font. I especially didn’t need to see speculation in that FB Friend’s combox that the passengers took a vote and elected to cause the implosion, rather than “die slowly” while waiting to be rescued. (Which, if true, would mean that the majority voters murdered the minority voters.) [This turned out to be completely untrue. By all reports, the submersible was destroyed by a “catastrophic implosion,” instantly killing all aboard.]
That long-time FB Friend has now been blocked.
Yes, the story of what happened here is horrible all around. Rich people paid to take a dangerous trip on a sub to gawk at an underwater graveyard. The youngest passenger, just nineteen, had barely graduated from secondary school, and apparently there are rumors that he didn’t especially want to go on the “adventure.” The company that organized this cluster-eff evidently considered safety negligible in the pursuit of money.
But you know what? Your disgust with the folly of rich people does not excuse you from the basic decency of acknowledging human tragedy in a dignified fashion.
Or, as my grandmother, who would have been three when the Titanic sailed, might have said, “If you can’t say anything kind, shut the hell up.”
On a local story about an empty grave and the ensuing lawsuit….
Um, wow, this is terrible. Good for the cemetery for alerting the family right away, but how the hell do you misplace a casket?
Actually, I have heard of this happening. A couple who buried their baby son were informed soon after that the child had been buried in someone else’s reserved plot. They had to have their child exhumed and re-buried elsewhere, going through the trauma of another graveside service.
Cemeteries need to get their act together.
I have long since stopped seeing this as a good thing. Which isn’t to say I’d bar the door of the Church to anyone. But I do think anyone coming from a position of authority in a non-Catholic community needs to do so as discreetly as possible (no media announcements) and live as an ordinary lay Catholic for a minimum of five years before even being considered for the priesthood.
When I was hectored by men for definitions of mansplaining and sexism while attempting to ask another man (someone who has spent his professional life as an academic) to reconsider a childish gibe he’d hurled for no good reason at a woman in public life….
You want definitions, guys? Here you go.
Mansplaining: When a man treats a woman in a condescending fashion, acting as if the woman has no knowledge of the very issue she’s trying to discuss—usually with a third party. Also, see “gaslighting” within a male to female framework.
Sexism: Discrimination based on sex or gender identity, especially against women. Example, when a man insults a female public figure for the purpose of setting himself up as an expert on her profession, particularly when he has no demonstrated expertise in that profession himself. Also, see “mansplaining.”
Reading through these scribblings cheered me up a bit. The past year or three has taken a severe toll on my health, both mental and physical. But I’m still able to scribble. It may only be for a paragraph or two at a time, or it may be under the form of Very Bad Fiction, but words are still there. Like a rusty tap letting out a stream of undrinkable water, the words may not always be publishable (or may only be publishable in small venues such as on personal social media). But I can write.
The next step is, of course, to write in full columns of 800–1200 words. I’ve promised my content manager to show up here in this space with a minimum of two essays per month. So, please keep an eye on this space. Prayers, good thoughts, comforting vibes, crossed fingers are all welcome that I may continue to scribble….
And to write.
(Image: Young girl writing on a notepad, Pixabay.)
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