Sailing, Sailing, Over the Bounding Main

By Paul Roberts

“An hour a day keeps the doldrums at bay.”

I borrowed that phrase from yesterday’s entry in my sowing seeds journal, and left a note for myself to look back at it to see if I had any interest in using it somehow for today’s blog. An hour a day of what, you ask? Well, in my journal it was in reference to my novel writing time.

A little over a month ago, my conversation with myself about the amount of time spent on my novel was more like, “just try and take five minutes here, five minutes there. If that’s the best you can do, that’s the best you can do.” Now I’m thinking I can find at least one hour, minimum, to work on nothing but the novel each day. For the last year, my metaphor for my novel writing has been “it’s a marathon.” My new metaphor is sailing. And it seems that the wind is picking up.

I like that word, doldrums. I was surprised to discover that the first usage of the word was about a feeling of listlessness or despondency, and not related to some oceanographic weather pattern. I assumed the origin of the word was related to the Christopher Columbus era sailors who found themselves making little headway across the Atlantic ocean because of a lack of wind in their sails. I am used to words that begin with some concrete example - like a lack of wind - and work their way into the language referring to something abstract, but the sailing connection to “doldrums” appears to have come about the other way around.

The weather is changing around here in Paul’s novel writing world. The winds are shifting, and I’m hoping that I may get some tailwinds coming to move me along. The writing retreat that Carol and I were on last week, a period of time dedicated to nothing but the novel, brought some tailwinds with it, and is pushing me in the right direction.

The really good news is, the wind is blowing. Tailwind or headwind, an experienced, skillful sailor knows what to do. When the wind is blowing in your face, you may not be able to sail straight toward the harbor, but sailors know how to “tack’ into the wind and make progress. Over the last year I’ve been learning my own process for making progress in my writing, tacking in my own zig-zag fashion towards the goal. In addition, I have some experienced “sailors” that I continue to learn from, some that I get to see regularly (I’m thinking of you, Sacred Community Garden members), and some that I read regularly.

History tells me Columbus headed out not knowing exactly where he was headed. I know how he felt. The ocean all around me presents a novel experience (pun intended), and I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to get across it, but I’m not in the doldrums here. The wind is blowing. I think I’ll keep sailing.

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When it comes to your own creative projects, how’s the sailing? Are you in the doldrums? Are you making progress, “tacking” into the wind? Have you got a great tailwind pushing straight toward your goal? Share with our community how you are doing.

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