Creative Fatigue

Only once have I ever stayed up all night "just for the fun of it." Sure, I've been awake 36+ hours during international trips, due to the logistics of traveling across multiple countries and time zones. But as for staying up all night just to prove that I could - yeah. Once was enough.

Here's how I knew I was not designed to pull an all-nighter, except under great duress: During high school, I went to a friend's house for a slumber party and stayed up all night. We did absolutely nothing, but it was the principle of the thing: I had boasted I could stay awake all night, and so I did.

I came home early on Sunday morning, just in time to find my family walking out the door for church. My mother instructed me to get ready (being home in time for church was the condition for my going to such a party on Saturday night.), so I obediently went to my room to dress, after promising to meet everyone at church as soon as I was ready. I put on my blue-and-white dress suit with the kicky skirt, fixed my hair, slipped on what I thought were my nice white heels, locked the house, and set out to join my family.

Thirty minutes later I parked in front of the church, but well back in the parking lot for all I was so late. I walked slowly across the asphalt, feeling the strain of fatigue threatening to bring me down. The temptation to curl up and sleep was such a threat, in fact, that I was unsteady on my feet.


Wearing heels? Not a good idea today, I told myself.

It wasn't until I reached the doors of the church that I realized that I wasn't merely tired - I was struggling to walk normally. The door greeter, however, had pity on me and pointed out what I had neglected to realize at the house: I had put on mismatching shoes.

More than that, I had put on one high heel and one flat, open-toed sandal.

My mother, who was waiting for me just inside the door, looked at my dejected, lopsided appearance and shook her head.

"Go home and sleep," she said.

I gladly obeyed.

November this year has left me feeling only slightly more oriented and rested than I did that Sunday morning. I haven't pulled any all-nighters, but I have juggled three jobs amidst pushing through my 51,000 word count for NaNoWriMo. Oh - and there was also that trip to Colonial Williamsburg with my students a couple weeks ago. And Thanksgiving. And music practice and church and tutoring and stuff.

You know - just a big ol' scoop of life. And then some.

The result is that I'm feeling somewhat creatively fatigued. Notice that I did not say I am creatively exhuasted - that's a different thing. I still have as many ideas bouncing around inside my head as I ever did; but right now I just don't have the energy to act on them. When I crossed the NaNoWriMo finish line last Saturday night, I immediately put it away until mid-December, at least. Right now I'm focused on recharging my batteries so that I'm equal to the task of taking up my project again in a couple weeks.

One way I plan to do this is to indulge in some "fun reading" for a change. As a humanities teacher, I've always got my nose in the classics; but I've decided that I'm also going to read some fun, recent, non-classics over Christmas break. I was interrupted a while back with Hood, by Stephen Lawhead, so I've picked that one up again. I've also discovered - thanks to the wonderful pep talks that NaNoWriMo sends out - the fantastical imagination of Brandon Sanderson and his Mistborn Trilogy.

Slipping into these reads have been like falling into a hot bath after a very long, hard day. It soothes all those sore literary muscles that I've stretched daily for the past thirty days, and makes them restful and limber for the next round of wordmongering. I hope all my fellow WriMos are treating themselves similarly. We all know the wisdom of reading while we write, but after such a grueling literary month it pays to balm our bruised literary egos with reminders of why we do what we do.

Besides, we can't afford to go into our own literary endeavors with a galumphing stride, or plot our own course with unequal shoes. Heels and sandals just don't go together, after all.

Take this time to make sure you're properly rested in your craft, so that you will not only be well equipped for the challenge, but so you will become, in turn, a restful literary bliss for someone else.

What do you do to recharge your literary batteries? 

What books are you reading for fun right now?

Current Fun Reading: October

To start: a simple yet bald fact about me: I love to read.

More than that, I read a LOT.

As a teacher, I usually have to triage my reading into three categories:

     Fun Reads
     Fun Reads That I Get to Teach
     Books That I Must Teach But Hate As Much As (If Not More Than) My Students Do

I could type volumes on each of these categories; but today I'm going to give you just a quick look at some of the "Fun Reads" that are currently on my nightstand, or at the top of my Kindle queue.

I admit, I read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice late in the game. It took several very literate men in my life - men, I tell you - to convince me that this was not some shallow chick-flick type novel, but a real work of intelligent, savvy, humorous literature. I was pleasantly surprised, and more than I can say, when I finally sat down and read this one all the way through. (And yes, to weigh in on the everlasting debate about the movie versions: I prefer the BBC version with Colin Firth above all others. I'm sorry - I just refuse to let Kiera Knightley taint my image of Elizabeth Bennett.) I'm currently reading the annotated version in order to savor all the fine nuances and details I missed the first few times through, and gaining an even deeper appreciation for it - which is good, since next year this will be a "fun read that I get to teach" book.

I'm not sure you can get much farther removed from Austen than Kurt Vonnegut. But I was introduced to his Slaughterhouse Five under rather peculiar circumstances while teaching high school (long story - with plenty of fodder for a future post), and as a result the story - disjointed and inverted as it is - has never left me. Irony saturates this tale of the time-shifting Billy Pilgrim from beginning to end, and the fact that the book is quasi-historical (in regards to the bombing of Dresden) makes it that much more peculiar and riveting, in the sort of dark, off-kilter way that only Vonnegut can manage.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Bronte sisters. Honestly, they were all talented, but I'm not always sold on how "gifted" they were - at least when it comes to Anne and Emily. Granted, I'm only halfway through Anne's Tennant of Wildfell Hall (and have yet to read Agnes Grey). I've been hotly prejudiced against Wuthering Heights since high school, and have yet to summon up the nerve to give that novel another try. But I've never had issues with Charlotte - leastways, not with her lyrical, haunting Gothic tale of the abused child who grows up into the quiet but steely governess Jane Eyre. I fell in love with it in high school, and every time I've revisited it, my adoration for the fiery Jane only grows by leaps and bounds.

And finally, my current, not-taught-in-school, purely-for-fun read on my nightstand: Stephen R Lawhead's Hood. It is a retelling of the notorious Robin Hood in a Celtic setting, and the first of a series; and while I am only a few chapters into it I've already found it very engaging and original, neither too sordid nor too cliche, and all around a delightful read. For the moment, we'll say that the jury's out on this one - I like to judge a book by it's entire tale, and not the beginning only - but to be fair I'll also say that I've been delighted with the tale so far.

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What about you? What "fun reading" are you making time for just now?