The Battle with the Churn

Happy Monday to all you Americans out there!

(Australians, I sincerely apologise for bringing up traumatic Monday memories for you).

We’ve had a busy weekend, but this blog post has been on my mind since last week, and I’m keen to share it with you. I want to talk about the ‘Battle with the Churn’. I’m not sure how familiar a term this is to Americans (or even to Australians…?) but it’s a fairly common one in the Australian Army: basically it refers to self-generating work and/or stress.

With that loose definition in mind, I’m sure the idea of churning is quite a familiar one. It’s what happens when you’ve written 10 000 words of your novel and you get a mild sense of panic about how you’re going to write your query letter, or market the finished work. Part of you is very aware that it’s completely unnecessary (some might say… crazy?) to be thinking about it at this stage, but the other part of you just can’t help dedicating precious time to planning it all out. Or maybe stressing about how you’re going to achieve it. Another good example?? Last week while trying to study, I started churning over how I’m going to get a job when I get back to Australia.

In 2019.

It’s more than two years away. I’m working my butt off with studying, rehabbing a back injury, blogging and writing a novel… And I’m worrying about the job I’m going to try and find in about 2 years and five months (not that anyone’s counting). Crazy, right?

Except, it’s kind of not. And the reason it’s kind of not crazy is that a lot of us do it. We live in a society that encourages us to always look forward to the next – the next promotion, the next job, the next holiday, the next rung in the ladder, the next thing. And living that way means sometimes we can’t even enjoy what we’re doing in the moment without thinking about where it’s going to take us. Now, don’t get me wrong: the ability to remain aware of the requirements and possibilities of the future is a great one to have, as long as it’s not ruining your capacity to live in the present. Then it’s a problem.

This moment is all we have.

The past shouldn’t be forgotten, we should stay aware of the promise of the future, but today is all we have: and if I die tomorrow somehow, I don’t want to have wasted time freaking myself out about what job I’ll do in 2+ years. Or how we’ll pay for our kids’ schooling, or whether I’ll go back to uni when I’m fifty and become a doctor (seriously something that I have considered as a life-plan option).

One day, I want to finish this draft of my novel. When that happens, I’m going to spend a challenging and gritty period of time editing, drafting and re-drafting (and probably re-drafting a few more times). Then I’m going to kiss it goodbye and good luck, and send it out the door to a bunch of publishing houses and ask them to love it the way I do. One day. But today is not that day, and I will never get back the minutes that I first spend meeting my characters and asking them (politely and sometimes not-so-politely) to behave themselves, while secretly enjoying the madcap way they run around without my say-so. I will never again write this novel for the first time, and there are going to be days in the future where I’m sick to death of looking at it. I’ll be tired of asking whether this sentence needs rewriting or this one needs deleting; it may not be all the time, but it’ll be there.

Don’t misunderstand me here. It’s not perfect and sometimes I have no idea where I’m going, but it’s beautiful and it’s new and it’s mine. It’s my first ever novel draft and, right here and now, I can cherish and revel in the magic of creating this novel.

So I should. And I do (as much as anyone can).

In the same way, I’ll go back to work again when we get home. (I mean, yes, James keeps joking about having kids as soon as we’re back in Australia, but at some point I do want to go back to working). It’s pretty unlikely that I will ever again have the opportunity to be nothing more than a housewife and a uni student/writer. There will be work and kids and moving houses and all those adult things that we can’t avoid for too long, but right now, I get to study every day, without having to worry about squeezing a few quick readings in around my job. And I should enjoy it.

That being said, I am always hungry to do more, even when I’m pretty sure that I’m close to tapped out.

So, enjoy today. Abandon the churn and just find something to cherish in the moment. If you’re a writer, let go of concern about the future: editing, marketing, publishing… Even your plot for the moment, and just enjoy the creation.

— Ana