Writing about not writing

A New York Times review of Lorrie Moore's new book, A Gate at the Stairs, explains the challenges Moore faced in completing her novel: as a single mother teaching creative writing at the University of Wisconsin, she had trouble finding uninterrupted time to focus on writing. The review quotes fellow writer Jayne Anne Phillips, who "said balancing a job and child-rearing with writing had shaped Ms. Moore's work. 'The double edge of it is that I think any form of real spiritual surrender does inform one's work,' Ms. Phillips said. 'But the problem is that oftentimes one doesn't have time to write the work.'"

I hear that.

I've known from the start that writing would be one key to sanity as I snake my way through the months of chemotherapy and radiation and their various side effects, but when can I write it all down? I can't write in class or in transit or while I'm in the grip of Elekta the elegant linear accelerator, and I can't write when I'm doped up on anti-nausea drugs or falling asleep on the sofa at 7 in the evening (on a good day). I can't write while I'm walking, but walking clears my head and helps me work through ideas to write down later--if I don't fall asleep first. I can't find any long, uninterrupted spans of time to devote to sitting in front of the computer, so I'm taking advantage of fleeting moments and writing in short spurts (like this one).

Anthony Doerr explained that while he was doing research for "Village 113," a terrific short story about change and growth and planting seeds, he ran across this quote from Pope John XXIII: "An old world disappears, another one is being formed, and within this I am trying to conceal some good seed or other that will have its springtime, even if it is somewhat delayed." Maybe someday I'll have the luxury of taking the long view, spending some leisurely time pulling things together and making something more sustained and meaningful than these daily musings, but meanwhile, I'm planting seeds and waiting for springtime.