Since “Coffee and waffles”, I’ve written precisely nothing. I keep thinking about it. I keep meaning to. But faced with the choice between writing and napping, I become narcoleptic. Or reading a novel becomes the most important thing in the world. Or, god help me, I hard reset my phone just to reinstall all my apps. Anything to avoid writing.
Why? I can’t say, really. I enjoy writing once I sit down and do it. Part of it, I think, is that I’m the kind of person that prefers keeping his options open over having things settled. I like to stay flexible. And if I don’t write, I can always have that much more to write later. The fact that this will always be true no matter how much I write doesn’t seem to matter to this frugal part of my brain. It’s always better to save for later instead of doing now.
Which, of course, sounds an awful lot like procrastination, and I’m sure there’s some of that in there, too. I am a world class procrastinator and freely admit to a bit of a lazy streak. Writing is effort, and I will avoid that when I can.
Fine explanations for my avoidance, all of these. But they’re mostly bullshit.
I avoid writing out of fear.
Even after all these years, writing is scary. When I’m really writing, head back, staring at the horizon as my fingers dance across the keys, I get lost. When I’m really writing, I get lost. Pick up enough speed and I’m not really there at all. I disappear, and the story writes the story. I’m gone.
It’s both exhilarating and terrifying. When I stop, when I “come down”, it’s like getting off a roller coaster that my body experienced but I have no memory of riding. My heart rate is up, I’m breathing deep, but I feel spacey, out of control.
We don’t think about it, but giving up control is a frightening thing. Maybe moreso for Type A westerners than it would be for someone who had grown up with Zen, but as it turns out I happen to be a Type A American 21st century male and giving myself up like that gives me the screamin’ willies. Maybe I’m afraid one of these times I won’t come back. Maybe I’m afraid of what might come out while my internal editor is off napping.
Maybe I’m just a chickenshit wuss and need to get back to writing.
After all, that’s what a Zen master would say, what the little one in my head has already told me.
“Roshi, I’m afraid.”
“Be afraid, then, but keep writing.”
Is that all there is to it? Keep writing, build a habit and stick to it in all circumstances, no matter how I feel? I’m sure I’ve read that someplace. I’m tempted to go look it up, but I have some writing to do.
3 Comments
Jeff,
Since coffee and waffles worked so well to get you going a few weeks ago, why not make consuming those things a part of your writing habit?
Coffee - for improved mental focus and wakefulness/ alertness.
Waffles- mostly for the sugar in the syrup (you are a syrup user, right?)- for energy and because the brain runs on glucose/sugar and increases in sugar intake lead to increases in sugar uptake by the brain.
The brain needs fuel for creativity.
You need focus to deal with the ADDishnes you mentioned earlier.
Coffee gives you the focus.
Waffles with syrup give you the fuel.
The wafflehouse gives you a boring distraction free environment.
Keep up the good work.
Jeff-I assume that the reason you are not keeping up the blog is that you are writing-right jeff?
Sorta. I’m thinking a lot about writing, but not so much with the actual stringing-one-word-after-another thing. I got a lot of great feedback from my last critique group meeting, nearly two weeks ago, and then promptly did nothing about it.
I’m also thinking about a couple other projects, one that I’ll probably do this year for NaNoWriMo, and another for… later. The latter is a massive project, as big or bigger in scope than Unification, but an idea that I’ve been thinking about for years.
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