Alumni Voices with Jackie Hesse: Falling into the Void

As I was blow drying my hair today–after adding the special conditioner for the ends and the thick opaque gel uniquely formulated to smooth and oh, and a few pumps of volumizer to the roots–as I stood there, pulling the round brush forward and then twisting it just so, I lamented my fate.

             
If only I were somewhere isolated where I didn't have to get dressed and fuss like this.

If only I were somewhere I could just get up and all day long focus on writing.

But that's a lie, isn't it?

           
Isn't this hour-long hair prep what I really want? Isn't it somehow saving me from some worse fate? Something ... dangerous?

           

Aren't I actually grateful not to be holed up in an isolated cabin in a rainy wood, with no excuse not to write and nothing to get between me and that blank computer screen?

           
Yes. I am. And you probably are too.

           
Because here in our busy lives we are able to procrastinate.

           
Procrastinate. Such a Minnesota nice, innocent word for such a menacing, massive obstruction to our success.

           
Andrew Steeves is frank, and funny, and insightful about his ability to procrastinate. "We have all these fantastic stories in our heads," he says "and the only obstacle to sharing them with the world is the hours and hours sitting at a desk translating the language of your brain into something other people can understand."

           
Peter Pearson is endearingly honest when he writes that even when he was in a place, "where all quotidian roadblocks between me and Transcendent Genius™ have been removed" the words did not flow. Up in his literal tower at the Anderson Center in Red Wing he did not spend hour after glorious unmolested hour at the keyboard pounding out what was sure to become a "triple Newbery."

           
Instead, he came face to face with that thing we fear.

           
Steven Pressfield calls this thing, or blockage, or obstacle, resistance.

           
I call it the void.

           
And the void is not a thing, it is a feeling.

           
The void is fear.

H.P. Lovecraft

           
H.P Lovecraft said, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

           
Scarier still is not the unknown that is lurking somewhere out there, but the unknown that inhabits the deep jungles of our own interiors.

           
When we stare into the void the questions rise and are released: What am I really made of? Really capable of? What if I am less than I believe? What if there's nothing more than me and this fear?

           
And so I cling to my busyness. That's probably why I got up to sharpen my eyeliners in the middle of writing this. It's why I take an hour to fix my hair, clean the sink drain, organize my sock drawer, pick a neighbor up from the airport. Doing any of those is so much easier, familiar and secure than whatever questions, whatever answers might be of asked or escape from the void.  

           
I asked a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction what addiction is at its heart. "Addiction," he said, "is the thing we do so that we do not have to face the thing that scares us." The scary thing is usually a deeply buried belief about ourselves, one that no matter how silly sounding, just might be true. We avoid it because to acknowledge and face it would be overwhelming. It may even destroy us. And so we keep ourselves distracted with booze, shopping, sex, gambling, the internet. Much like what we do to escape writing.

           
But there is no friend needing a ride, no socks needing organizing, no imminent trip to Walgreens pressing on us when we are alone in an isolated cabin in a rainy wood or up in a writing tower.

             
Instead, we have to sit with ourselves, with the void. F.E.A.R., it has been said, is nothing more than an acronym: false evidence appearing real.

           
But something greater than fear brought us to write, brought us to Hamline. This thing is love: a love of story, a love of writing. Love is not false, love is real. And love is stronger than fear. It is what allows us to get to the chair, to face the screen and write. 

Jackie Hesse is a January 2013 graduate of the MFAC program. She lives and writes in Saint Paul, Minnesota and teaches at Normandale Community College.

Alumni Voices: Andrew Steeves

A Procrastinator’s Tale

I am, if nothing else, a very thorough procrastinator.

Take this blog post. When the always impressive Marsha Q first gave me the deadline of June 2^nd, I assured her that, since my daughter was due to be born on May 27^th, she would be receiving my post many weeks before that time, because in addition to being a procrastinator, I am also an idealist.

Time passed, as it tends to do, and I found myself thinking about this blog post as a thing I should do, which really is a delightful feeling to have. I love having things that I should do, because it makes me feel important. I love the feeling so much, that I tend not to do a great many things I should do, because then I will continue to should be doing them.

Of course, like all states of conflated ego, there’s a moment where the importance turns to shame. It’s no longer a thing I should do, but a thing I should have done by now. That is when a special kind of reasoning kicks in.

“I’ll just do it after my child is born.” I thought with no sense of irony. After all, I had a whole five day window between my daughter’s entrance into the world and this post’s due date. Not only did I earnestly believe this to be a completely rational plan, I romanticized it a little bit. I pictured myself in the hospital recovery room, sitting next to my sleeping wife with my brand new baby daughter in a bassinet at the foot of our bed, my laptop open on my lap. I’d write about how all my life I wrote books for children without having a child of my own. How everything would be different. How my worldview had been transformed. There wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.

Not only was this a stupid plan, it turned out to be an impossible one. It turns out my daughter is just as much a procrastinator as I am, and at the time of this writing (June 2^nd), has yet to make an appearance.

Procrastination is nothing foreign to the writer. We have all these fantastic stories in our heads, and the only obstacle to sharing them with the world is the hours and hours sitting at a desk translating the language of your brain into something other people can understand.

I can have, in my head, the greatest story in the world, but it means nothing if I don’t put in the work translating. It’s this work that separates the career writers from the hobbyists, and without trying to pander or flatter, I can honestly say the value of work is a lesson that I learned at Hamline.

One thing I’m sure other alumni can attest to is how easy it is, outside of the strictures of Hamline, to procrastinate. To fall out of the habit of writing. No more deadlines, no brilliant teacher eagerly awaiting your work. It’s just you, the page, and a cruel uncaring world.

So, how do you continue to write under those circumstances? How do you avoid procrastination?

It’s a question I don’t have an answer to. I still procrastinate on a lot of things in my life. I don’t cash checks in a timely manner. I’m always late to bed, and often late to rise.

But I’m proud to announce that I still write. I’ve completed five additional drafts of my novel since leaving Hamline, and this next draft will most likely be my last before I seek an agent. While I still struggle with procrastination, I still write, and I know exactly why.

I write because I have to. I write because I have a burning passion to write. Even when it’s tedious. Even when I’d rather put it off.

Because some things are worth forcing yourself to do.

***

Andrew Steeves is a 2013 graduate of the MFAC program. He lives in Wisconsin.