Process as a Reflection

If you live an authentic life, almost everything about your life will seamlessly reflect who you are. So, for example, if you live--authentically--by the Do Unto Others golden rule, hopefully, you will go through life doing just that. I knew a priest once, a really great guy, and we once had a conversation about how some people just don't get it. He said he called these people the "I Love Jesus" crowd, because they would come to Mass and shout the loudest that they loved Jesus, and would flip the bird at the first car that didn't let them cut into the lane to leave the parking lot. The point, said my priest-friend, was to live the love authentically in everything you do. Not just that hour Mass (and an aside to anyone Catholic--he HAPPENED to be a priest, but this inauthenticity is true for every religion on the face of the planet . . . there are people within who get it. And people within who don't).

So it is with me and process. There's a joke in my family, because my Significant Other is Mexican, that we operate on Mexican Time. Which means time is . . . negotiable. If you want my family to arrive somewhere on time, you must tell us the time is at least an hour before what the time really is. I know this is not restricted to my family, because I have an Irish friend married to a Jewish man in New York, and he says they operate on Kathy Time, and that, apparently, means the same thing as Mexican Time.

I can spend hours reading a physics book, but don't have the concentration to pay attention to anything I loathe for more than five minutes. I don't like to be told to be certain places at specific times, don't like organized events (like conferences . . . lecture, lunch, lecture, lecture, cocktail hour, etc.). I usually am good for one scheduled item and then go hide in my hotel room with room service and a book.

Or take directions. I am the person who gets some gadget--a camera, a computer, whatever. And pretty much throws away the directions while I try to just LOOK at the thing and intuit how it operates. And then if I can't figure it out, I hand it to Oldest Son, say, "Figure out how to make it do this," and wait for him to show me. Because I learn better that way.

So it makes SENSE that I don't outline. I don't like feeling restricted. I don't like having a plan. I do like having a general sense of direction, sort of like, when we left for the beach in New Jersey, I knew I was traveling NORTH, but beyond that . . . it was a bit, shall we say, fluid. But eventually I get there.

Or I don't. I have a friend (hi G.L.!) who lives a mile from me, give or take. I could spit and have it land on her house. The first time I drove there, I was twenty minutes late. I had Mapquested it, but went in the total wrong direction anyway, because I'm not good at following directions or reading maps, and ended up miles and miles away before I looked at Oldest Son and said, "This doesn't seem right." Which is how I am when I write. I may get scenes and scenes into a book before I realize something's not quiet right, and then I intuit how to fix it.

No, my process could never work for most people. But it's definitely a reflection of me and my whole crazy life. And I am okay with it. It feels real and authentic to me.

So when you hold up a mirror, do you live an authentic life as a writer?