How We Spend Our Days: JOAN FRANK
March 2024
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How We Spend Our Days: JOAN FRANK
Dark and cold rainstorms here lately in Northern California: perfect for interiority. I rise at about 7:30 to brew a small thermos of diabolically strong black coffee, pour-over style: my own blend. Then I stretch and do a bit of yoga, listening to the loveliest music I can find (solo classical piano or guitar). I take breaks to compulsively check Facebook for literary news and gossip. While stretching I chat with my husband—he’s reading his iPad nearby—about the news, weather, our friends, our plans, the past. When I finish stretching, I gather coffee and papers and tramp out to my studio, a converted, ancient, freestanding garage behind our house. Thank God for it. (Virginia Woolf was hella correct, but likely she did not count on lively interruptions. Read on.)
I begin at my desk with business and correspondence: writing email letters to close friends gives special comfort (I’ve written about this in the collection Late Work and in “The Lonely Voice in Its Bathrobe.”) It’s also a way of warming up, loosening and stretching think muscles.
Eventually I pull up work in progress and start to noodle. (I like the word “noodle” because it pulls out the claws of performance anxiety. Also, if I tell people I am “noodling” on something, it sort of quells their well-intended curiosity.) Sometimes I just challenge myself to add a single line, reminding myself of my total freedom and privacy as I go. Please know this does not mean I don’t regularly feel stumped, scared, or even fraudulent. I’ve taught myself to ignore most of that. A friend compares the process to digging a tunnel with a fork: Yes!
Suddenly: Husband bursts through studio door (and I mean bursts, exactly like the character Kramer in the old Seinfeld episodes) to tell me some “important” news—a friend or relative just called; this or that just happened. I stare at him while he’s speaking with my best facial impersonation of clear attention—feeling all the gossamer dreams in my mind’s back chambers melting like dew. I love him dearly; I’m the main one he has to tell it to. This frustration is utterly constant—been so for more years than I dare admit. At such times I try to recall Jane Smiley declaring, as a young mother, “Yes, I let the children into the studio. They might give me some ideas.”
Back to it: several paragraphs in, like clockwork, the thing I’m working on freaks me out: so painful or overwhelming I feel stuck: how can I face this or dwell much longer with it or—worst—who could possibly want to dwell with this? Each time it happens I have to talk myself through it as you might a child: take it easy. Fool around, I urge me. Goof off. If you frog-march Stern Authority out of your head, stay loose and comfortable, eventually something wanders in: a next move or tactic, a line or element or image. (These may also sometimes surface while I’m brushing my teeth, or walking, driving, waiting in line at the supermarket, or reading.) What really helps is to tell myself, as I do today: just one new line.
The single word describing my writing life: Irreducible.
Books I read over and over (and keep talismanically close): two of them. One is The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, a mysteriously guaranteed medicine against anxiety. The other is A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler, a small perfect jewel of a novel exemplifying how a story can, unforgettably, embody the inexpressible.
I have many strange obsessions and habits. One is to have heavenly music going almost inaudibly while I work; it seems to help ease me into dreams. Another (copying William Maxwell, joyfully described in Late Work) is to write in pajamas and bathrobe, allowing ideal physical comfort and freedom.
I have a slender fountain pen that stays on my person at home: if it’s temporarily misplaced, I panic. I have a small notebook I keep near. I tote both around the house; carry substitutes for them when I travel.
For a break from writing, I check up on latest book reviews, mulling which new titles likely will or won’t sing to me, sometimes stopping everything to order delicious-sounding new books from the (blessed) local library. If someone’s new work blows me away, I post it on Facebook and implore closest friends (who are literarily aware) to read it so we can talk about it. Because I also write reviews, I labor over those like a watchmaker placing jewels, giving insane amounts of time to making them seamless. I also strive very hard in reviewing, even when I do not care for a work, to emulate the famous medical creed and do no harm.
Hey ho: husband bursts in again. The laundry cycle doesn’t seem to have functioned. I rise slowly, dazed, brain reeling, to deal with the washing machine and my husband and a side trip to the kitchen to notice the dishes in the sink: they can wait til afternoon.
Back at my desk, adding here to the strange habits list: I cannot speak to anyone about work in progress except, if asked, to say “a story” or “a novella.” I cannot let the project’s innate mystery leak out; it needs to keep its “warm clay” status for as long as I can sustain that. Also for that reason I will not print out a work until it’s finished. (The clay starts to cool when you print.) I won’t let anyone see it until it’s done. My husband’s the first reader. Then I may ask one trusted, brainy best friend—or not. People are throttled with their own stuff. After starting to submit work for publication, I cannot bear to look at it or even think about it for a long, long time.
Boom! Husband flings open the door. He’s going for a walk before a friend comes over. Her power is out and she may need to stay here.
Yes, dear. Good plan.
I work for two or three hours. Because weather is crap, I’ll go to the gym and read (New Yorkers or The New York Review) on the elliptical. Then home, a brief nap, dinner. Then more reading and maybe a streamed movie—or go out to meet friends for a movie or meal or both.
While I pedal (or walk or grocery shop or drive or read or socialize), at some level I never stop brooding, greedy to pounce on any idea or image that may sprout from any external source.
I try now, to avoid getting depressed by the contemporary writing industry, to bear in mind the long game, the total perspective, which happens to be hilariously bleak. Quoting my playwright husband: apart from a few works by Shakespeare, “everything’s forgotten.” (He also thinks some alert student might one day write a paper about my work. Nice.)
Once I let go of angsting about the circus—even briefly, even temporarily—peace, privacy, and an ability to resume work flood back in. The option (for letting go) is always there, like Dorothy’s ruby slippers—letting me look forward to my next writing day.
NOT THOSE SAME 3 QUESTIONS…
1. What one word best describes your writing life?
Irreducible.
2. Is there a book you read over and over again?
Books I read over and over (and keep talismanically close): two of them. One is The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, a mysteriously guaranteed medicine against anxiety. The other is A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler, a small perfect jewel of a novel exemplifying how a story can, unforgettably, embody the inexpressible.
3. What is your strangest obsession or habit?
I have many strange obsessions and habits. One is to have heavenly music going almost inaudibly while I work; it seems to help ease me into dreams. Another (copying William Maxwell, joyfully described in Late Work) is to write in pajamas and bathrobe, allowing ideal physical comfort and freedom. I have a slender fountain pen that stays on my person at home: if it’s temporarily misplaced, I panic. I have a small notebook I keep near. I tote both around the house; carry substitutes for them when I travel. I cannot speak to anyone about work in progress except, if asked, to say “a story” or “a novella.” I cannot let the project’s innate mystery leak out; it needs to keep its “warm clay” status for as long as I can sustain that. Also for that reason I will not print out a work until it’s finished. (The clay starts to cool when you print.) I won’t let anyone see it until it’s done. My husband’s the first reader. Then I may ask one trusted, brainy best friend—or not. People are throttled with their own stuff. After starting to submit work for publication, I cannot bear to look at it or even think about it for a long, long time.
By JOAN FRANK
I love this, Joan. The book and music recommendations especially, but most of all the spirit of writing this way.