Angela Amman

stories of choices and consequences

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drafting

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Writing partner demonstrating how we both feel

I began drafting a new short story the other day. Like all beginnings, it felt exciting. I opened Scrivener, opened a relaxing playlist, and began working. Prior to starting, I made a few notes on an index card (hot pink), and I truly meant to pound out a great amount of words between then and now.

I haven’t.

I did draft that day, and I might have a character or two, though I’m not sure about names and definitely don’t feel all that attached to anyone right now, and whose idea was it to draft a Christmas story in the midst of a Midwestern heat wave? (It was my idea. And honestly? I should have started this project well before any heatwave could have even thought about happening.)

My writing brain might be broken.

It’s a tough thing to admit, when I used to have ideas tumbling over ideas in my head, some of them even scribbled on note cards or in notebooks or in draft folders that fester away in the depths of my Dropbox files. I see it here, where my thoughts are in tiny spurts instead of actual paragraphs. I see it in my journal, where most days I can only muster up the energy and concentration to write a gratitude list. I see it here (again), as I open up my blog instead of the new project folder I started for my Christmas short.

My writing brain might be broken, but my writing muscles definitely are. I don’t remember how to shut off my thoughts and listen to the whispers of characters and, maybe more importantly for the type of writer I am, the flow and rhythm of the words I want to use. Even when I do put together words, they sound choppy and stilted, bullet points masquerading as sentences, dialogue never overheard during an eavesdropped conversation, exposition upon exposition instead of action.

Guilt creeps in if I even think about sitting and staring out the window, if I try to relax my mind enough to hear what’s going on inside. This is the first time I’ve attempted to write since Ryan began working from home. Not to sound icky, but some of the guilt comes from the feeling that he might judge how unproductive a lot of writing actually looks. In the past, it’s been maybe invisible to him, and now it feels bare and exposed, especially since I am so out of practice and so unsure of how the words are even going to make it from the ether to my mind to the page.

I don’t remember it feeling so hard in the past, though I’m sure it did, the way I don’t remember the hardest edges of having little kids around the house. I don’t remember the way I fought exhaustion after a restless night of sleep and a refusal of naps; I remember the fun of refilling the bottomless Diet Coke at the zoo and letting the kids pick more animals to see as we wandered around. Similarly, I don’t remember the drafting process for the stories I’ve written. I remember the back and forth banter of working with Cam and Mandy, the process of determining cover images and front matter quotations.

Now it’s time to build up those unremembered muscles again, to pull the words out from somewhere, even as they hide away in the shadows. I know it’s possible. I’m just not sure how to get started. (OK, I AM aware of how to do it; it’s just easier to ponder existence here instead of sitting down and getting to work.)

unsettled

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I had to look back to see if I’d titled another post “unsettled” in the last few weeks, because this feeling somehow feels a bit unshakable right now. I’m done with work, but I still go in periodically. It’s summer (and sunny, exactly at this moment) but definitely not warm enough to feel like summer. The kids are out, but we haven’t adjusted to our summer schedules yet — and things change next week when Ab goes to Boston, anyway.

It’s a surreal time of year, when we’re sidestepping unemptied backpacks to get to recital bags and spending so much money on “just one more thing” from a list or another meal outside the home, because we’re all rushing in different directions. I love new beginnings, and the end (and beginning) of the school year always feel like that, but they’re stressful, too.

What are we forgetting? Are we remembering to take a break and enjoy the celebrations happening all around us? Did we write thank you cards? I did change and wash the sheets this week, right?

There’s a lot going on.

I think it might be more annoying for Ryan than anyone, since his schedule remains the same, and we’re basically bringing a bizarre combination of chaos, bursts of productivity, and moments of ennui into his normally calm working environment. He is kind, always, and says he doesn’t mind, but I feel like he might be trying not to add to the feeling of unsettled chaos. I know it would bother me.

I’m making lists and not getting them finished to satisfaction. I’m eating things I know hurt my stomach, and I’m regretting it after. I still have flowers in the garage I have to plant somewhere, though I’m not sure where, and we all know my gardening skills are abysmal.

Random activities ensure the days feel untethered to anything like reality. Today, for instance, I’ve been to the shower, the orthodontist’s office, and a Brandy Melville store that felt too small and was farther away than I remember Ann Arbor being — and the day isn’t done yet.

Still. I’m waking most mornings to the cat’s meow instead of an alarm, though I sometimes set an alarm as backup because the cat is nothing if not complicated. I’ll settle into the new normal — probably just in time for the back to school sales to begin.

read-alouds

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Wow. Almost a month since I’ve logged on here, which isn’t exactly how May was supposed to go. I’ve been doing a couple of things consistently (obviously not blogging) that are small, but not insignificant, at least for my mental health.

I’m happy with the amount of movement I’m getting each day. My running isn’t ramping up in the way I expected, but I’ve run outside a few times, and I’m doing my best to get to 10,000 steps each day. Most days I’m at least managing a long walk, even if my speed doesn’t approach anything close to running.

The other thing happening daily are nightly read-alouds. I’ve been making a conscious effort to dive into other forms of writing besides my beloved novels, and poetry feels perfect at the end of a long day. It’s not the only time I open my books, but even if I’ve been distracted or busy, I can end the day with a single poem.

I read them aloud, then sometimes to myself in my head, then sometimes again. Finding the rhythm soothes me. It doesn’t soothe anyone in my house, apparently, since everyone declines nightly poetry time, which never would have happened when my kids were toddlers and lived for nightly reading time. Luckily, I have one reading partner who doesn’t know the difference — Max.

He listens no matter what I read, without comment.

Some days I wish I could discuss with him, because some of my favorite poems leave me with more to wonder about than you might expect. When it comes to reading aloud, E.E. Cummings rises to the top of the pile again and again. Now, the poems themselves aren’t necessarily my favorite, though they might be if I understood more of what I was reading. Many nights, though, I find myself falling into the magic of the patterns, the sound, the way the words feel in my mouth. Other poets allow me to fall into situations and meanings, like Mary Oliver, but Cummings, during many reads, is all about the visceral feel of the words as they exit my lips.

I come back to them in the daylight and parse phrases apart, sometimes feeling confident, sometimes just wondering. (Wondering things like, “Why didn’t I study poetry more during my undergraduate degree?” in addition to “What is that supposed to mean?”)

I’ll feel the meaning another day, I tell myself, drifting to sleep. When that happens, I really do feel like the poem is singing its own little lullaby.

looking back

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I was digging through old photos last night. It looks different now, of course. I had to hook up an external drive, and wait for Abbey to be home to give me her password for my old computer, since I don’t have the right cords to hook up to my new one. (That’s me, tech genius.)

It’s time to turn in photos for Dylan’s 8th grade farewell ceremony and all that that entails. We have the option of providing a kindergarten and 8th grade photo. Of course, the easiest ones are the school photos, but we all know those don’t always do the best job expressing who are kids are or what they’re wearing day to day.

I found, instead, a photo of him playing a ukulele at our friend Joe’s house. Dylan’s eyes look almost neon blue, and he’s wearing pajamas, which happens when you are visiting friends out of town but also when you are someone who really values being cozy. In his eighth grade photo, we had a little back and forth regarding what he liked versus what I liked.

I found a photo of him at the Kansas City Zoo, birds perched on his arms while I took the photo from outside of the enclosure (birds landing on me? no, thank you). He’s laughing. I remember the day vividly. Instead, he chose a photo of him lounging on the oversized Adirondack chair at the Ron Jon store in Cocoa Beach. Like most of his photos from this year, his hair is growing out. He’s wearing a sweatshirt and smiling with his mouth closed, obscuring his braces.

He looks every bit of his fourteen and a half years.

It’s a strange thing to look back on old photos, especially when you keep them in a not-the-simplest-to-access location. Facebook memories pop up every once in a while, but for the most part, we’re busy moving ahead and don’t always take the time to wallow in old hard drives and cloud storage locations.

I wallowed a little yesterday. Those days were hard, physically hard, with chasing and feeding and rocking to sleep — or not — and never having the chance to finish an adult conversation, let alone devour a novel in a single now. Now I can do all of those things, but I don’t have a chubby set of fingers reaching for mine or apple red cheeks laughing at just about anything at all.

As a writer, I hate cliches, which is (of course) a cliche in and of itself, but oh my goodness. It all goes by in a blink.

(Guess whose kids are getting extra long hugs tonight?)

a lesson from a lazy Sunday…

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…that will likely teach me nothing.

This past Sunday I didn’t do much. I went to a soccer game. I read and watched a (truly odd) movie by myself from my favorite corner of the couch. I only got about five thousand steps, and I only know that because I opened my app to look right before typing this sentence. We ordered Chipotle for dinner, and got the worst versions of our orders, which ended up being so funny I didn’t even care very much.

I did do some laundry. Even lazy days require laundry.

I felt guilty about it at different points during the day. Maybe it was after waking up from a nap, but I’m not sure I took one of those. I probably did. Seriously. It was one of the laziest days I’ve had in a long time. The guilt came from both having things I needed to do and having things I wanted to do and wasn’t doing.

At one point, I noted that I should write about it, but I’m not sure exactly what direction the original note meant for me to take with this little post. I’m not sure, because I’m sitting down to write this, not on Monday, but on Friday, a day much closer to this Sunday than the past Sunday. The week, as they sometimes do, got away from me in regards to having too many things I wanted to accomplish in too few free hours.

I vaguely remember wanting to write about the guilt but also the healing nature of spending a day doing frivolous things, and I also vaguely remember feeling a little sad that frivolous doesn’t mean indulgent right now but just resting. Then it took me days to write it, and the flash of insight left, leaving only a smudge of insight on my brain.

What I should learn is a lazy day shouldn’t induce guilty, especially when surrounded by not-at-all-lazy days, days spent moving and chatting with friends and worrying and celebrating and finally wearing sunglasses because of actual sun and not just my overly-sensitive eyes. Everyone deserves recharging.

The truth is, I likely won’t learn that lesson. I will be more likely to feel the guilt creep in the next time I take a lazy Sunday, but I’d like to think I’ll learn it eventually.

remember the substack plan?

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The other day, a horoscope app I use entreated me to “make a plan.” Now, let’s be honest, it’s not the most insightful horoscope giver if it’s telling me that, because there’s nothing I like more than a plan. The implementation of the plan? Hmmmm, well, that’s not always a success.

One of the reasons I started blogging again is because I legitimately believed I would have the ability to get things moving in my rusty little brain. I wanted to start a sub stack that would carry little works of fiction from my brain to people’s email boxes, though I don’t have much fiction percolating and I don’t have much readership to read it, even if I did.

All of this pondering to say my blog’s tagline, when I thought those things matters, is “stories of choices and consequences,” which was supposed to be what I wrote about, not a judgement of how I use my time on the regular.

Choices and consequences happen daily, in all areas of my life, and I’m trying to make better ones. (so many thousand steps, read something that makes me think, think about what I’m ingesting — physically, emotionally, and mentally. These are all parts of “the plan,” at least the plan I’m working on at the moment. Maybe the sub stack idea will come to fruition, maybe not. At least today I’m thinking about it again.