{"id":1228,"date":"2006-10-05T21:10:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-05T21:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2006\/10\/its-all-oeuvre\/"},"modified":"2006-10-05T21:10:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-05T21:10:00","slug":"its-all-oeuvre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/its-all-oeuvre\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s All Oeuvre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did I disappoint you?<\/span>
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?<\/span>
— U2 “One”<\/p>\n

Today I faced up to a couple of pretty big truths. One, I can’t tell you about. But suffice it to say I made a little leap in understanding something about myself and I am feeling pretty good about it. Whatever happens, I am going to be okay because at least now I am clear and honest about how I feel, and about what’s going on.<\/p>\n

I went out with Ned for a little coffee after dinner and celebrated my new understanding. Then we watched The Office<\/span> and had some good laffs.<\/p>\n

The other thing I figured out is related to the first in that it involves not forcing something. I have been forcing a book. Raping the muse. Not only that, I have been forcing a marketable book. For me, the only thing more deadly to my creative process than thinking “marketable” is an outline. I hate outlines.<\/a> It’s strange how, I was sitting here today crying because I was realizing the first Big Truth (see above, and then feel puzzled because you don’t know what the f*** I’m talking about), and I wrote it all down, and then suddenly it was like a dam broke inside of me, and I was crying about my lack-of-book. And then it hit me: I have a God damned book. I have my <\/span>novel! <\/span> I wrote that thing all spring and summer and it is done and I have not honored it in the least, because I kept thinking how the next book has to be an Important one. The next book has to either be even more about Autism or about Something Big.<\/p>\n

I have completely disregarded my novel as anything serious because I knew I was disappointing everyone. And I knew they don’t sell well. As predicted, my agent was not pleased about the novel idea because “they’re so hard to sell.” My editor was not pleased because she wants a continuation of MPWA. My friend Emily wanted me to snag this opportunity that has fallen into my lap, for a book that would no doubt make me Really Famous because of a certain connection I’ve made, and she knows an agent who can make it happen, etc., etc. I talked to that agent and, yeah, she’s really excited. I feel like EVERYONE wants me to write this Really Important Book, and I should. So I have sat down to write that Big Tome again and again and I just fall asleep. I went to start my Research, and I felt like a fraud. I felt the way I did in grad school, like someone eventually was going to point at me and say, “Ha! Look at her, pretending to do research!”<\/p>\n

So then I tried to write it as a Susan Book, not a Big Tome, and I wrote three grafs and then felt only silence in my head. Silence that then made me want to weep. A writer without words is a very sad thing.<\/p>\n

So today, while saying to myself about That Which Shall Not Be Named, “Why, why, why?” I, multitasker that I am, also thought about Dirt: A Story of Gardening, Mothering, and a Midlife Crisis. <\/span>And I thought, a la JFK: “Why not, why not, why not?”<\/p>\n

It may not be a blockbuster. It may not be a great literary Work. It isn’t important, and it isn’t the next big thing.<\/p>\n

But it’s mine. And it’s already written. Now I should try to make it good. And find a new God Damned agent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did I disappoint you?Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?— U2 “One” Today I faced up to a couple of pretty big truths. One, I can’t tell you about. But suffice it to say I made a little leap in understanding something about myself and I am feeling pretty good about it. Whatever happens, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-jO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}