further than our headlights

I’m at a point in the semester now where there’s two major research projects to take care of, a novella that needs to be finished sometime soon, and all of the regular homework, social, and job responsibilities need doing.  Last night I had a minor mental breakdown when I realized that the eleven pages of notes that I had did not constitute the draft of a research paper about creative nonfiction that I need this afternoon.  But I got the draft, and in doing the draft I now know what needs to happen for this paper to get finished.  Spent the night tonight not worrying about that project and instead worrying about my other project, which, as of right now, will be an essay looking at the dynamics of power in relationships and marriage as well as the Christian origins of sexual perversion in Richard Wright’s novel The Outsider and the film Angry Harvest.

Making that transition into research projects is hard because you don’t know what you’re doing when you start.  In high school and early college, you had an idea, then you went out and found sources that backed up what you were trying to say.  But when you get into this kind of research, you had to find out what others have said, what ideas are floating around out there, then the idea is to enter into the conversation with your own interpretations and ideas.  It takes a ton more work, and it a ton more stressful because you’re drawing the map as your paddle up the nameless river.

There is a famous quote about writing from E.L. Doctorow: “It’s like driving a car at night.  You can never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”  And I think that particular sentiment applies just as well to life as it does to writing.  We may have a general idea about where we’re headed, but none of us can really see further than our headlights.  And the minute you take your eye off the road is the moment you miss a turn.  So that’s the point I’m at in the semester right now–driving in the dark, squinting over the dashboard, watching for rustlings in the ditch, and thinking of what’s waiting at the end.