A Post a Day in May #12: Do you do lists?

-
I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May. 

You either make them or you don’t. We could likely divide the world’s population into two camps: “Make lists” and “Wouldn’t be caught dead making a list”. Me? I fall firmly into the “Make lists” camp. 
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
Yes, I make lists to keep me on track and to ensure I actually do what needs doing — water the garden, take out the recycling, buy milk, pump up bike tires, and so on. 

However, deep down, I make lists because a fully achieved list, a list on which every item is struck through with a confident line, a list that has been well and truly conquered, is a list that gives the satisfaction of several or many things having been done, i.e., brought to an end, closed, terminated. It is not the doing of the individual items that gives me joy. It is this beautiful state of completion that makes me love lists. 

Sometimes, I play with the list. Sometimes, I amend it even after it has been wrestled to the ground through iron-willed determination. At those times, I will add a task or chore on to the list that I accomplished along the way even though I had not originally intended to tackle it. This amendment makes the list tell a different story and is, therefore, more satisfying to me.

I am reminded in those instances of William Zinsser who wrote much about writing and of whose oeuvre I remember two sentences in particular: “I don’t like to write; I like to have written. But I love to rewrite…” (from On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Non-fiction, 1976). Of course, he is referring to loftier writing than quotidian lists; however, his wisdom holds true, nonetheless. 

Writing first, hard as it may be, is essential. There is no rewriting without an original text. But the real craft of writing, even when it’s only a list to guide your day’s activities — the real craft lies in revising that first draft to be what you actually want to say. To reflect what you actually did.

Lists? I make ‘em. And then I remake ‘em to tell the best story I can pull from an ordinary day. Because, sometimes, your ordinary day needs a bit of sprucing up. 

------------

Writers want to be read, so comments, rebuttals and feedback are all welcome. Subscribe to the blog to receive the posts direct into your email inbox. Use Google Chrome or FireFox as your browser, if you have problems via Safari. I cannot post comments via Safari, but can via Google Chrome. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated. Please be respectful.

Popular posts from this blog

Listening for the piano / Thinking about grief

-
Image
Grief is not a land in which I have travelled much, though I routinely explore it via others’ experience. I am drawn to do this as a student is drawn to the masters: To observe, to sit with, to wonder if those others’ experiences might help prepare me for my own when I find myself in that place. Will it? Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski mystery series, says that the grief over her long-time husband’s death hit her like a grand piano falling out of the sky onto her head. There is no pre-mourning, she says. Nonetheless, I persist in my studies: Memoirs of loss. Stories of grief. Tales of survival. I sit with those experiences. The words, the feelings, the anguish wash over me. And I ask myself: Will the sun rise tomorrow? Will I see it when it does?  Should I worry about this? Should I just expect, presume that what has always been will always be? Absurd. It will not always be. The loves of my life are all older, are all old. 95, my mother. Almost 80, my p...
Read more

Anniversary post: This year marks 31 together

-
Image
Amanda and Val: many years ago and today.  Man, look how young we were. Sheesh. Thirty-one years and counting certainly shows. But who in their right mind would care about wrinkles or grey hair when it is a good and generous love that has propelled us through the years together.  Every good story is told through both summary and scenes. Val & Amanda’s story: The summary A generous love that has withstood the challenges of two bouts of cancer and multiple joint replacements, of job changes and career disappointments, of cats found and cats lost, of parents living and parents dying. Two women, together, building a good life. Amanda: Three scenes April 1997: Val and I are driving from Winnipeg  down through the Dakotas and Wyoming and Utah to Arizona, camping in a tent along the way and marvelling at what we can do together, still, after Val’s cancer diagnosis earlier that year. At a roadside cafe somewhere in Utah, a woman asks me if we are sisters. Without skipping a b...
Read more

If pride comes before a fall, what comes after disappointment?

-
Image
Disappointment is not something any of us aim for, I’m sure. The very last thing I ever want to be told by someone is that they are disappointed in me. But this week, I have been very disappointed in others. Life goes on, but that niggling thread of “if only” and “why could it not have been different” lingers in the corners of my mind. Last week’s lightening-quick sale of our cottage ended in disappointment all round when the deal fell through at the final hurdle. The details are not what matter here; what matters is that age-old life lesson about counting your chickens before they’re hatched and sharing good news before it is fully rooted and secured. But who among us has not jumped the gun? Presumed that all would go as promised, as planned? Believed in the goodness of people and trusted that the story would unfold as it had begun — smoothly, seamlessly, successfully? Ah, well. Sometimes it just doesn’t. So we find ourselves at a new beginning, with a different round of showings and...
Read more