Airplanes freak me out. It’s not that I think they are going to drop out of the air or even that they might explode; it’s more like a building certainty that SOMETHING will go wrong as soon as I am locked away in the cabin. There is no rational evidence behind these fears at all. It’s just a paranoia of mine (of which I have many). Bleary-eyed and cold from the jarring trip through security, I am always searching for some sort of sign that will tell me “Lauren, get off the plane. It’s going to implode when you buckle your seatbelt.” But, of course, that never happens.
Instead, I find my seat and begin eating mints like a crazy person, because this is calming. When the engines rev up for take off, I can’t help but close my eyes. Are the wings still in tact? Is that a new kind of whirring I hear? Possibility is the enemy of paranoia at times like this. Teeth clenched, hands clamped to the armrests I can barely breathe. Inevitably, the plane always takes off. Sure, there are lots of horrible things that could happen, but they never do. It is only when we are rising upwards that I find my courage to look down at my departure and take in the sights below.
Thinking about the views from an airplane got me thinking about my habits as a writer. Often, when I am stuck on a piece, I close the file—I might print it out first—but then I put it away. There doesn’t seem to be much closure in this act of “filing,” so why do I do it? I used to tell myself that it was so I could start a new project. Recently, I’ve been thinking that instead of simply putting away stagnant thoughts, I need to try and finish them. I guess you could say it’s a little bit like opening my eyes in those last moments of ascent: if you keep your eyes closed for the whole time you miss the bigger picture. And if I am going to write truthfully, I will have to see first what the work has become before I can see where it will go next.
The Novel Shrink 