The One that Got Away

Okay, class. In your seats. It's writing time. The topic is on the board. Quiet. And...write.

Let's assume the teacher adds a great deal more to set the stage for the writing period. The students are motivated and no one is upset about sticky apple juice residue on his desktop or a precious toy that disappeared from his desk during recess. Everybody writes, right?

We all know that is not reality. Sometimes the ideas don't come or the moment isn't right. Despite the best of intentions, a paper or laptop screen can stare blankly and taunt the writer. I had a staring contest with both yesterday. I lost. First it was the laptop. Blinky, my beloved cursor held steady at his perch in the top left corner. Nothing. Come on, Blinky, shake out that toe cramp and get moving. Still nothing. I left Blinky to work out his issues and surfed the Net. And surfed and surfed. Eventually, I realized my brain was waterlogged and my laptop would not be a creative tool for the day so I shut it down and pulled out the pencil and paper. I could not come up with even a doodle. AHHH!

Producing nothing when you really want to accomplish something is agonizing. I felt powerfully productive the previous day when I took the dogs to daycare. This was the time when I was supposed to build momentum. It didn't happen. Instead, I went out and dug holes in the yard. That felt good. You see, I have a lawn that refuses to respond to a mower. I can mow and mow and mow and these pesky blades of grass keep popping back up, not the least bit scarred. There are hundreds--er, thousands--of these rebel blades. Some are reaching knee height. I keep digging up patches, telling myself the entire lot will one day be a garden. For now, I have blank patches of dirt. They go nicely with my blank pad of paper.

Here's hoping I will have something to show for today. If not a chapter, then a new plot of perennials.

Looking for Levity

Best friend dies. Mother gets beaten by current boyfriend. Yikes! Why so grim? So serious.

It seems that I haven't fully shaken the weight of responsibility from an intense work year and my writing is impacted. I'm supposed to write amusing scenes and use humor for coping when characters get into a bind. That's not happening. I have a choice: go with the grim or find a way to get funny back.

I'm looking for levity. I checked out a copy of humorist David Sedaris' essays, When You Are Engulfed in Flames--okay, not a funny title and the cover illustration of a skeleton smoking doesn't hint of humor, but I've been told he's a humorist and I sure hope I haven't picked the book that will be hailed as "a welcome departure". If I still can't find the funny, I might have to get base and rent an Adam Sandler or Eddie Murphy ode to flatulence. Desperate times, desperate measures.

Of course, if all else fails, I will embrace the darkness and write about it. I just might have to leave a night light on when I go to sleep.

Slow but Steady

Well, I managed to finish the second novel yesterday.

CUT!

Take two.

Okay, so I wasn't anywhere near that productive. It was the first day of my summer writing. Give me some slack. I could blame the dogs, but they weren't any more distracting than usual. No, it's just a difficult transition to sitting at a desk and staring at a (blank) laptop screen. I needed many breaks to stretch and move about. I even gave the microwave a thorough scrubbing!

I did make some headway with my writing. I chose to set the novel aside since getting back to it will require a day and a half of rereading and tinkering before writing anything new. I needed to actually write on the first day so I worked on two short stories. Both were a little grim so I'm hoping to bring some levity to that project with a humorous entry at some point this week. Not feeling funny just yet.