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<\/a>Frances McDormand, speaking recently at City Arts and Lectures<\/a>\u00a0about Olive Kitteredge<\/em>,\u00a0referred to the HBO miniseries<\/a> she stars in and produced as her empty nest project. Already mourning her son\u2019s not-quite-imminent departure when he was 14, McDormand cast about for something to take his place. She bought the rights to Elizabeth Strout\u2019s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel<\/a>, shaped it with screenwriter Jane Anderson and director Lisa Cholodenko\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad, and insisted that Richard Jenkins be cast as Olive\u2019s \u201ctyrannically cheerful\u201d husband. When McDormand\u2019s son left for college, she left for Gloucester for three months of filming.<\/p>\nI, too, dreaded my kids\u2019 departure long before they left home. My empty nest project was writing. I had dabbled in words before, but aside from churning out a clever holiday letter every year, my oeuvre<\/em> was pretty non-existent. Writing was the one thing I looked forward to, not just to fill the void, but as something just for me after years of tending to others–my consolation prize for the planned obsolescence of motherhood.<\/p>\n It was also good therapy, as writing usually is. I poured my anxiety and grief onto the page. \u201cSoon we\u2019ll be leaving the emerald hills and spring-soft skies of the Bay Area to visit faraway New England colleges, icy sirens that entice my baby away from home,\u201d I began. This turned into my first Perspectives<\/em> piece<\/a>. Like most things that well up from the heart, the words came spontaneously, easily. They struck a chord for many listeners, though one felt compelled to write that my daughter was lucky to escape my neurotic clutches!<\/p>\n Olive Kitteredge was accused of much worse. But where would be without our neurotic clutches? They are the wellspring of creativity. Equanimity does not hold one\u2019s interest for long. Nor does it provide good copy. The bulk of my personal essays are about the empty nest\u2014anxiously awaiting it, grieving it, then enjoying it. I knew I was through the mourning process when I began to tire of writing about it.<\/p>\n On to new things. Now that Emma has moved back home after being gone for so long, perhaps my next endeavor will be the Boomerang Project. And looking forward to seeing what comes next for Frances McDormand.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n How have you transformed your struggles\u00a0with creativity?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Frances McDormand, speaking recently at City Arts and Lectures\u00a0about Olive Kitteredge,\u00a0referred to the HBO miniseries she stars in and produced as her empty nest project. Already mourning her son\u2019s not-quite-imminent departure when he was 14, McDormand cast about for something … Continue reading