A Different Creation

 

Unusually, I have left my home city this week to travel to Bristol. As I get older, I find adventure, however low-level, less appealing, so it takes something that I really want to do to make me move. Our son lives in Bristol, and it was lovely to see him, obviously, but we also wanted to see Fran Lebowitz, who was appearing in the city. For those not in the know, Lebowitz is a New Yorker and a writer who has famously been what she calls book-blocked for decades. Her last book was a children's book called "Mr Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas," which was published in 1994.  Before these, she had written two books, which gained her literary fame and established her as an author. He has not written a book since. 

Famously non-technical, she is not online and does not possess a mobile phone. She says that she writes with a Bic pen and that this makes her slow - too slow to produce another book, certainly for now. She is now in her mid-seventies, and despite having a couple of ideas, there doesn't seem to be any sign of a book appearing soon.  

At first, I thought this was sad. She's obviously talented, and it seemed a loss that there may be no more books. However, after a bit of thought, I stumbled upon the blindingly obvious. She describes herself as book-blocked, not writing-blocked. She isn't producing books, but she produces columns for the New Yorker, among others. She has a programme on Netflix with Martin Scorsese. The stage show that we saw was ostensibly a Q&A session, but it was also carefully scripted - someone had written a lot of it. She is also a regular on talk shows - again demanding a decent level of creativity. It's not just about books. 

My writing life so far has consisted of precisely one book - If you only measure a writing life in books.  But there have been newspaper columns, a play and an ongoing blog which have also contributed to a writing life. Will I produce another book? If so, when? In a few months, or years, or ever?    

God is famously keen on things being done at the right time, or what the Message calls an "opportune time" in Ecclesiastes. So I have to keep one eye open for God sending ideas and creativity around a book, but also to accept that there are other ways to scratch my God-given creative itch, and these have huge value in themselves.

Lesley lives in Plymouth and is a part-time charity leader. She blogs at https://wrinklymartha.blogspot.com/ about the perils of always being the person in the kitchen when God is doing really great stuff in the front room.