Imagining A Reader

I am relieved to report the Thanksgiving week revision retreat achieved the desired effect: edits for Heading North have been delivered. It took absolutely every second that I set aside for it (which was pretty well the entirety of five days), and I was surprised at how unexpectedly easy it was to stay inside the work once I’d decided I wasn’t going to do anything else.

I had a list of other things I might do in the latter parts of each day, since my brain is pretty notorious for going completely offline at roughly 3 p.m., which is the price I pay for waking up fully functional at 4:30 a.m. Now that it’s dark by late afternoon, the success rate for re-starting said brain effectively in the evening is relatively low. So I considered the crafting projects I’ve had languishing (my poor loom), books I wanted to read, and even a set of exams I’d brought home to grade just in case.

I touched none of them.

Given express permission, or rather a pressing directive, to focus only on one thing—and having orchestrated the days to enable that focus—I was able to actually do that. Against all expectation, I fell deep into that well and was content swimming in that space alone. That I was surprised is knowledge I should take as instruction: To complete something, space must be made for it. That’s certainly related to my thoughts a few weeks ago—the limiting magic of making a choice—and today I’m also thinking about why it worked this time.

The fact that I could construe this revision work as something I was ultimately doing for someone else—my editor—certainly helped. Knowing that someone—a specific, tangible someone—was waiting on the pages proved to be a powerful motivator, beyond the idea of a deadline. (The deadline part was more self-imposed than anything.) It is a real boon to have a sense of someone anticipating the work. I’m frequently that person for my students by virtue of assignment deadlines and workshop requirements, and one of the things I say, often, that I hope students will take to heart, is how important it is to cultivate readers as they go forward, to find others who really want to see their writing. (Try as I might, it can’t always be me.) A workshop group is one solution to this, of course, and can provide deadlines to encourage the draft along, which are often as valuable in the early stages as any concrete feedback, but it’s worth also having a reader for whom you can do absolutely nothing except provide a good story, the very best one you can make. Editors, agents, and very specific friends may fit this bill, but the first two may not be within immediate reach and the latter might not have the bandwidth at the moment. So what’s the next best thing? The reader you build in your mind. Not the critical, fault-finding one, the one you’re worried about, the one that seems to show up often enough without permission, but the one you wrote the book for. The person you imagine in your favorite bookstore—give them a t-shirt and a haircut you like, a way of walking, the particular motion of their hand above the shelf, ticking along book spines, or a crossed-arm stillness until they find the right book and then they stoop like a hawk to snatch it up—finding exactly your story and thinking yes, finally.

That person is waiting for your work. And while you might not have met that reader yet, while you might think they exist only in your imagination, you know they’re real. You know that person is real because, if you’re a writer, you have been that perfect stranger who picked up a book once—hopefully lots of times—and thought yes, finally. Your reader will wait as long as it takes, but they are waiting and wanting you to finish.

This is what I’m thinking about as the semester’s end approaches. After the grading, the assessments, and the meetings, and before the planning, the trainings, and the meetings begin again, there will be time. If I can give myself permission to do one thing, if I can remember someone, somewhere, is waiting, who knows what might happen?

What I’m making: In the tiniest little fits and starts, I am back at my spinning wheel, continuing on with the Tour de Fleece Fossil Fibers braid set I got this summer. When you have a tendency to spin fine, as I do, you learn to have patience and to be pleased with small things because it takes a very long time to get to the actual finished yarn.

Case in point: I’m at the place in which I am transitioning away from the dark teal part of this braid and into a slightly lighter section of fiber (which will eventually pass through purples to arrive at a fabulously intense Malbec-esque purple-red). Each little section of the bobbin filling with a faintly different shade paints a new picture. Here, I think of horizons at sea. The final braid will be made of sunsets as the gradient passes from that wine-red to day’s end orange. I might only spin a few grams of fiber in any given day right now, so this is how I take pleasure in the spinning, since the finished yarn is a promise yet to be kept.

What I’m Reading: A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast by Dorthe NorsI adore a book that loves its landscapes. Melissa Faliveno’s Tomboyland, John McPhee’s The Crofter and the Laird (and frankly quite a lot of McPhee), Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek—these are perennial favorites. And I say love and I mean that the writers look upon their worlds with clear and patient eyes, which is to say eyes that are willing to see what is unlovely and love it anyway, in the truest way they can.

What I’m writing: I’m presently working on an essay in response to the call from Outpost 19 for Rooted Two: Best New Arboreal Nonfiction. I have been thinking about this call for months and I’m so grateful to Renèe E. D’Aoust for sharing it with me. Check out the call and write about trees, too! We have until February to get our foliages in order.

And finally, thanks so much to everyone who read last week’s special edition, shared it, or made a contribution to the Friends for Life Bike Rally! I was able to reach nearly 1/3 of my fundraising goal to support people with HIV/AIDS.