Writing: Just Do It or Pause?

Today was a stressful day. The snow has turned to ice. The pavement of my road was gritted, apparently for the benefit of the bin men, as the other roads were not gritted. My Mum suggested that if a bin man slipped and hurt himself, he could sue the council for not providing safe conditions, but mere taxpayers are not entitled to such consideration. (Gosh, I’m getting cynical and reactionary in my old age…) I slipped several times walking to the station, but managed to regain my balance without falling over. A car didn’t see me on the zebra crossing and nearly ran me over; luckily I saw it. When I got to the station, the departure board said the train was not supposed to leave for a minute, yet the doors suddenly started to shut. I jumped on, but my rucksack got caught, and I collided with someone who was standing near the door. Then there were Tube delays again, but this time I didn’t find out about them until I was actually on the train and had to improvise my way to work, just getting there on time.

And that was just up to 9.30am!

After that things settled down, but I made stupid mistakes, probably as a result of thinking about my novel when I should have been working. The afternoon was largely spent trying to reconcile differences between two different presentations of data from a database. I eventually solved it, but it was tiring, although I suppose tasks like that do make a change from my usual work, and it’s good to solve a problem completely, even if I’m not sure I always manage to explain what the problem wasto J.

I didn’t fancy walking on the ice in the dark on the way home from the station, so did what I rarely do and phoned my parents for a lift. I then spent far too long online responding to an article someone had posted to the Orthodox Conundrum Facebook page. I didn’t really have much new to add to the discussion, I just wanted to make contact with other frum (religious) Jews, or maybe just other people. Like the Jewish joke about the never-ending conference, “Everything has been said, but not everyone has said it.”

***

I was thinking a lot about my satirical novel today, probably too much, especially when working, as I said. I feel like I want to write, but I also need to work, I want to widen my work to work from home proof-reading to increase my (low) income, E and I will be getting married soon and we want to have children, then there are my various daily religious obligations. All these things take time and energy. Writing seems like a luxury at best, a distraction at worst. Yet it’s the thing I most want to do, after marrying E (which isn’t an activity in the same sense). E indulges my novel writing, which is good, but sometimes I wonder if it’s a good idea.

I feel I should blog less and write fiction more, but they don’t really take up the same store of psychic energy. Fiction is about understanding the world and I have to be pretty alert to do it, blogging is about processing my emotions and I can do it when tired (like now). It would be easier if I slept less and was less exhausted when awake, but it’s hard to change those things with a suspected sleep disorder and autism. Autistic exhaustion seems to be commonly self-reported among autistics, even if the psychiatric world doesn’t really recognise it.

Like a baby, the novel will probably come when it comes, if it comes. An article in the Jewish Review of Books that I read today stated that writing success requires “talent, persistence, an almost naive self-belief, and courage.” I’m not sure how much I have any of those, except perhaps persistence. I think it also requires imagination, and I’m not sure how much I have of that either as people with alexithymia are not supposed to have much imagination. Part of me feels I should JUST DO IT; another part feels I should take a break for a couple of weeks, although my  mind will probably continue to think about the plot of the novel, as the monotropic (singularly-focused) autistic mind doesn’t let things go easily.

***

The Facebook article I commented on is political, and so is my novel, in some sense, and I’ve drifted back into a “My political thoughts are confused and contradictory and all too often I just mindlessly agree (or mindlessly disagree) with the last opinion I heard and I really should not be allowed to vote or have opinions” mood. There is nothing constructive I can say about this, so I will stop.

***

Someone on the autism forum started a thread about being autistic and Christian. I think my response sums up a lot of what I’ve been trying to say here for the last couple of years:

I’m Jewish, not Christian, but I definitely struggle with synagogue: too many people, too much noise, and sometimes we have a cantor who doesn’t sing so much as shout (very uncomfortable for me). The refreshments after the service are also difficult: being expected to make small talk, difficulty hearing what people say to me over the general noise, etc.

Religious study in the Jewish community is supposed to be in pairs, which I have not been good at. My brain just stops working when someone is sitting opposite me expecting me to say something insightful. I just study by myself.

Then there’s the social expectations to be married by age twenty-five and have a big family. Also the fact that Judaism expects people to have a lot of energy and focus to meet the requirements of prayer, religious study, ritual observance and family, alongside work, and that’s hard even without factoring in autistic exhaustion and being “out of spoons,” not to mention the issues I noted above.

Advertisement