Shower Talk

9:00

“The journal is the writing,” I told myself. It’s my safe haven, the one place I know that I will write every day and the one place I’m confident that I can’t fail. And I’ve tried to convince myself repeatedly that if I write regularly there, I am a writer.
The trouble is, I never quite believe it. To call a journal-keeper or diarist a writer is like calling a Special Olympics participant an athlete. It’s a rationalization—though a humane one perhaps--a denial of the obvious. Writing notes isn’t being a writer, even if they run into thousands of pages as mine have.
“Yes, I’m an author,” I hear myself saying.
“Oh really? What have you published lately?”
“Well, er, I don’t actually publish, but I do keep an extensive journal.”
“Hmm, I see.”
So it’s out. I’m a writer but not a real writer. I’m a closet writer. Oh, if only I could instead answer, “I did a little story recently about a New York piano bar, Fred and Ginger.”
And it’s true, I did! “All the Things You Are,” from the old Jerome Kern tune, is one of the best stories I ever wrote. But I wrote it last year, and that’s not “recently.” And I wrote dozens of other short manuscripts over the years, but haven’t tried to publish any of them.

Okay, so let’s just say I’m not a writer and be done with it! No one but me cares anyway. But can I accept that? Of course not. I have to believe that I am a writer, or at least could be a writer someday, whether published or not, whether paid or not, whether read or not. Even if I must delude myself completely and forever, I can’t admit defeat. To do that would be to give up the one goal I have had for personal creativity for over four decades. I can think of none other to take its place. I can’t give up my dream.

I’ll just have to keep trying, I guess. Try to imagine, try to create, try to loosen up and fantasize a bit. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again. I must believe that But it’s devilish hard.

Things I’ve Learned about Life Dammit Anyway Department
By Blaine Kauffman
1. It helps to keep busy.
2.
The end

10:00
I’m going to Sam’s Club and get some gum and granola bars then pick up a burrito for supper tonight. And maybe pick up--who knows?--a floozy, a Mexican doozy.

What? Hey, at least I’m imagining something. Probably from a Jimmy Buffett tune.

A Man Who Buys Gas
By Blaine Kauffman

Yes, I am a man who buys gas. The kind of stand-up, confident fellow who grips the nozzle straightaway and forthrightly. I make no bones about it. I squeeze the handle firmly. I do not flinch at the pump’s antics, like when it says “printing receipt” but no paper comes out, or flashes “please see attendant.” I pump the gas, replace the nozzle, and drive away. That’s just the kind of man I am, and I make no apologies.
Sometimes a do forget the cap, but it doesn’t matter. I can get another cap. The important thing is to be the right sort of fellow, the sort who has “the right stuff” as they say. So if you’re looking for that kind of man, you’ve come to the right place.
The end
11:00
Okay, I’m getting there. Two small bursts of imagination, and the key in each was slipping into a role, a voice, saying something I might have said anyway, but not in my journal voice, not in my normal voice. Taking a role. I must step aside and adopt a role. That’s what’s hard, to break out of my reasonable voice and thought and “become another person.” But it seems to be vital. Otherwise nothing can be imagined, only recorded. To imagine, I have to step out of myself and become a different speaker. How can it be at once so difficult and so instantaneous?

Two down. Not bad. I am beginning to hope again. Who knows, It may get easier as I do more. Visualize, visualize, visualize. Sing! Relax. Dream. What do you see? Whom do you hear?

Knowing Why
By Blaine Kauffman

If someone climbed a tree and won’t come down, why? Do you know why?
I don’t know why he won’t come down. I’m sure I don’t. I even doubt that he knows why. In fact, I’m sure I—he—has no idea why. Knowing why is not something I am aware of, certainly. I mean, er, no. No, no, no! You’ll not find me claiming any such thing, I can assure you.
The end

Three down, not bad. I may dig out the voice recorder software again. Dramatic voice? Lyric voice? All I know is it’s definitely not the journal voice. But stepping aside from myself as it were, “going into character,” jumping into that dark water of creativity with both feet can be more than a little scary.