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My name is Tom Cooper. I am the director of a library in suburban St. Louis County. I have been writing for a long time. My publications to date include many book reviews in newspapers and magazines, chapters in books on library subjects, articles in library journals, and a book which I co-authored on the history of the town where I work. For most of my life I concentrated on writing fiction. Then it came to me several years ago that the only things I had ever published were works on non-fiction. I am not a fiction writer, I am a non-fiction writer.
I tell you all of this as a way of reintroducing myself, both to you and to me. For people who have read this blog regularly the arc of my life over the past several years is well-known. In 2012 I moved with my family from the suburbs, where we had long lived, to an 18-acre plot of land in rural Jefferson County. We had a barn and pastures for horses, large gardens, many fruit trees, and bee hives. It was a completely different lifestyle, one in which I spent most of my time working on one thing or another. When I wasn’t at my actual job I could be found cleaning horse stalls, mowing fields, weeding a garden, turning compost piles, or one of the thousand other jobs it takes to run a place like that. I learned as I went, I had triumphs and reverses. I found that the time one actually has to experience nature in that sort of environment is extremely limited. I found that I was right in my thesis that living on a farm, or a ranch, or whatever you want to call it, is not ‘getting back to nature’ in any real sense. Farming is a technology, it is not nature. That’s why the Garden of Eden, the oxymoronic garden with no effort, is a fantasy.
Then, beginning in early 2016, I experienced a crisis in my personal life. That is still ongoing, although one hopes for resolution soon. I now live in a small apartment in the city of St. Louis. I like the city, I like its vibrancy and the easy availability of interesting things. I have often said that I like city life and I like country life—it’s suburban life that I find distasteful. But my appreciation for city life does little to ameliorate the stress of awaiting a settlement.
Amid all of this, both the endless round of work at the ranch and the anxiety of extreme life changes, I have lost my way in my writing. Many years ago, perhaps fifteen years or more, I conceived the idea for a book about the seasons. There were a variety of reasons I found the subject appealing. Finally, somewhere between 2010 to 2011, I started working in earnest on that book. I was making good progress on the research and the writing until we moved to High Ridge. At that time I was in the middle of the third chapter, the chapter about seasonal mythology. I spent the entire time I was there, nearly 3 ½ years, working on that chapter without finishing it. I made repeated attempts to revise the chapter into something manageable, I moved on to other chapters for a while, but the feeling grew that the entire work was stalled.
In the first several months after I moved from the ranch, I dithered and got nothing written. I could not concentrate, especially not on something that needed intense revision and good authorial insight. For a while I had been thinking about another project which grew out of my research on the seasons, namely a history of the New Year. I think it is a very interesting subject, drawing in more cultures and changes over time than many people know. I spoke with one of the co-authors I had worked with on the above-mentioned history book, and she was amenable to the idea of creating a book proposal. Both of us, I think, did good work on that proposal, but after most of a year, it is still not submitted.
Then I started working on a fiction project. I told myself nearly a decade ago that I am a non-fiction writer and began to focus on that, so why was I writing fiction again? Not only fiction, but a young adult novel with a science fiction theme. I don’t like and don’t read science fiction, so what’s the idea? This is when I knew that I was lost in my own work. Even my blog posts for a few years have been spotty, both in frequency and interest.
In the past week I have been rereading my early chapters on the seasons book, which bears the working title The Varied God, same as this blog. It comes from a poem by the 19th century Scottish poet James Thomson, in which he says the seasons are ‘the varied god,’ different manifestations of god throughout the year. I have a clearer idea of what I originally meant to do with the work, and I mean to get back to it. It will take deep cuts, deep revisions, and concentrated creativity. It is the kind of work that I think brings the work to life as well as the person doing the work. I think it is exactly what I need, and I only hope that I can do it.
Best of luck with your writing and personal journey
Best of luck Tom. I too lost my way in writing following a family crisis. I know how draining it is. I also hope to find my way again. Perhaps it’s time to flog that writer’s group back to life? If you decide to, let me know.
~jon
Jon–I was enjoying the group. Seemed like everyone else kind of drifted away. Hope you’re getting some writing done these days.
Hello Tom, I know you can and will finish your book and I look forward to it.
Thanks Cate. Your vote of confidence means much to me.
I know you can get your focus back. I’m certain that spring is the “season” of hope and the promise of new and better times. Your life experiences are opening onto new vistas and your writing will surely reflect that. Good luck.