As I understand it, this week’s topic is how we keep the
creative writing activity walled off from the mundane but pressing concerns of
life such as the bills, politics, climate change, the funny sound in the car’s
transmission, etc. (Actually the title of the prompt is “How much space do you
give emotional nonwriting labor? Which doesn’t make much sense to me.)
So, pressing forward without much internal clarity on the
actual topic here…I’m very VERY good at compartmentalizing. Not sure if I’ve
always been this way or if I acquired the skill in my first days on the job at
the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a newly minted Buyer. The requisitions
(in twelve colorful carbon copies) literally came pouring into my inbox all day
long. I had to make calls to obtain quotes, return calls from vendors and
impatient end users, had to write documentation for files, field calls from the
reviewers (“Why didn’t the Buy American Act apply here? Where’s the Service
Contract Act clause?” etc.). I had to walk over to Receiving and search for
lost crates the vendor insisted had been accepted on the premises. There were
meetings and presentations. Oh and if
the purchase order needed correcting? You had to use the correct color of ‘Wite
Out” on each of those twelve rainbow-hued carbons. I had an army of ‘Wite Out”
bottles on my desk.
Yup, busy.
And the frustrating thing was, you could never finish
anything in one phone call or with one action because there were so many
players involved. I like to pick a thing up, take care of it and move on, never
looking back. Not possible with a lot of purchase orders in those days.
In order to survive, I got very good at breaking tasks down
into component parts, doing what could be done at the given moment, setting it
aside and moving to the next thing. I would not think about Stanley Scientist’s
seriously overdue order of twelve crystals from Sweden until I got the next
phone call on it or notice it had been delivered (but six were cracked and now
we had to do a return…) I can click on and off on with regard to a topic or
task.
 |
| NOT the evil alien scientist |
When it comes to the writing, I sit down to write and I’m in
the flow. The farthest thing from my mind will be the bills or the car or any
other problem or issue other than the evil alien scientists menacing my heroine
at the moment. If I were to allow the ‘emotional nonwriting labor’ to intrude,
I wouldn’t BE writing because I wouldn’t be in the thick of the action on the
alien planet. Flow interrupted. Muse departs for the day in a huff.
Sorry I have no useful tips or insights to offer here, since
my compartmentalizing is just how I am, with a To Do list thrown into the mix.
If you google the topic of learning to compartmentalize, lots of helpful blog posts
and articles pop up. Apparently it can be a reaction to stress, among other things.
Yup, that Buyer 1 job was stressful all right! But worth it to (a) pay the
bills and (b) contribute to the scientific exploration of the universe. I loved
being part of NASA/JPL and I’m really proud of my mission stickers, badges and
pins. I was there and I played my business-oriented role in some very cool
stuff.
Closing the blog post writing compartment now, time to move
on to the next thing!
Note: Images other than cover art from DepositPhoto
