Ah…there isn’t, for the most part, was my lame reply, to which she just stared. When she finally said something again, which was a bit of a long, rather uncomfortable pause, she began to lament “people.”
But people are really all quite the same. Everyone gets this feeling of isolation, of feeling adrift in a seething sea of faceless multitudes. And when that feeling comes home to roost on our doorsteps, we feel “lost.” That was the gist of my response, anyway.
“But you never seem to be affected,” she said.
“Oh? You think I’m immune?”
She nodded.
“Well, I’m not. It’s just that I’m used to it,” I replied.
“Used to–?!”
I laughed.
“Bev–” (Not her real name, of course). ”You thrive in peopled surroundings; for me, throngs are overwhelming. I can’t think or work in that kind of environment.”
“But it’s so healthy!”
“Not for me. I wind up stressed.”
“Well,” she said, waving a hand, “that’s because everybody wants to talk to you when you do show up, since you so rarely ‘come out.’”
“Steamrolled,” I replied, laughing and getting her another soda.
“You seem to enjoy yourself.”
“I do. I enjoy people. I just wind up exhausted and sleeping for two days afterwards.”
“But that’s just it,” she said. ”I’m around all these people, and they’re just as lost and isolated as me. …No matter how many friends are around. You, you’re never lost or isolated. I want to know why.”
I shook my head. ”I get to feeling lost and isolated just as much as any of you,” I said. She, of course, gave me this disdainful, “roll-eye” look. ”You don’t see it because I’m not out among you.”
“So how do you fight it?”
“I don’t. I write it out,” I said. ”It’s always good for a scene or a story. And the feeling will pass. It is, after all, just a feeling. We’re never really lost or alone. It’s just a state of consciousness that happens when we’re feeling like nothing we’re doing has any effect or meaning.”
She leaped forward in her chair. “That’s it! Yes! No effect and no meaning!”
“The minute you get a short story accepted or a good word from an agent or editor, that feeling goes away, doesn’t it?”
Nodding now, she agreed.
“It’s just that spot when we don’t feel like we’re making any headway, when no one who we perceive as mattering to our progress as authors is making noise about us, that makes us feel alone and adrift. We aren’t really. We’re surrounded by friends, family, associates. But, right then, their words don’t count because we’re not waiting for their praise. We’re looking for it from somewhere else. And that makes us feel alone in the midst of our crowd of cronies.”
“I am waiting for word back on a revision I sent in,” she said.
I nodded.
We went on to talk about other things — the weather, our writing, the new President, the economy and its effect on publishing. She seemed more relaxed when she left as well as more at peace.
When nothing’s happening and when you or I, the author, are waiting for something to happen, at times it can leave us feeling utterly lost, even when surrounded by well-wishers. It’s just part of the process.
Recently:
- They Work Very Hard
- Treading the Dangers of Fiction
- Infighting About Grammar & Punctuation
- Scary Writers
- New Novel, Chapter Two
- To the Book Store
- New Novel Amid Chaos
- Raw Gore, Explicit Cruelty, Debased Sex in Novels
- Back from Summer Hiatus
- Self-Publishing IS Better
