writing avoidance – M. K. Waller

I’m participating in Write 30 Minutes in May to raise funds for the American Cancer Society.

*ACS2022Wiki, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons*

There’s nothing like a writing challenge to teach you something you should already know. Or to remind you of something did know but forgot or stopped believing.

For several months before the fundraiser began, I went through a slump. The I-hate-writing/Everything-I-write-is-worthless/The-book-I’ve-been-working-on-forever-is-trite-trivial-stupid-flawed-doomed/I-can’t-make-the-plot-work-anyway/I-should-scrap-all-40,000-words-and-binge-watch-Law-and-Order-and-play-Candy-Crush slump.

It happens periodically. But this was a particularly long and depressed dry spell.

And when you get out of the habit of writing, it’s difficult to start again. I dreaded the arrival of May 1. It arrived anyway.

To ease back in, I got out the journal I bought in January. I had resolved to write in it every day. That resolution, of course, wandered away with the others. But better late than never.

I’ve always enjoyed writing longhand, so the journal seemed just the thing. Sort of.

The first few days were modified torture. I stopped every few minutes to check the clock: 25 more minutes; 18 more minutes;12 more minutes; 11 more minutes . . .

It was like writing a 500-word essay in high school, when I stopped every few lines to count the words I’d written.

That went on for eight days.

On May 9, sitting in the infusion room at Texas Oncology, I opened the journal, uncapped my pen, and prepared for misery. After two lines in which I expressed frustration at having gotten myself into this mess, a shift occurred. I was suddenly rewriting part of a scene for the novel—brief, but pivotal to the plot. Then I drafted a new scene.

While I was working, the volunteer who’d provided me with a blanket and a cup of hot tea approached. “May I ask a question?”

Of course.

“Are you writing a journal?”

I said I was.

“The reason I ask,” she said. “My daughter gave me a journal, but I don’t know what to write in it.”

“Anything,” I said. “Everything. Start by writing, ‘I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write.’ And suddenly you’ll be writing about something.”

She smiled. “That’s very encouraging.”

After she left, I thought, “Well, d’oh.” How many times had I read that same advice in how-to-journal books: Start writing about nothing and your topic will appear.

How many times had I told my students to do that? How many times had I forgotten to take my own advice?

And what had I just done? I’d started writing about nothing—I am so frustrated with having to write and not being able to think of anything to say—and worked my way into something. The very something I’d needed—and wanted—to write.

Three days later, we left on a road trip. I wrote in the car. From Little Rock to Knoxville to Lake Charles to Houston to Austin. On smooth roads (Arkansas and Tennessee) and rough (Louisiana). Through road construction (Texas).

I worked on that-trite-trivial-stupid-flawed-doomed book. I wrote new scenes and revised old ones. I wrote notes about scenes I need to shift around, characters I need to flesh out, darlings I need to kill.* I wrote blog posts. I continued to write that night at the hotel.

I didn’t stop at 30 minutes. I kept going for two or three hours.

Since we got home last week, I’ve continued to write. I’ll write to the end of the fundraiser.

And on June 1, I’ll still be writing.

Thanks to the American Cancer Society for all it does to find a cure for cancer and to make life better for those affected by it.

Thanks for giving me back the desire to write.

***

Kill Your Darlings–I’ll let MasterClass explain:

“The phrase “kill your darlings” has been attributed to many writers over the years. Writers as varied as Oscar Wilde, G. K. Chesterton, and William Faulkner have been credited with coming up with the phrase. But many scholars point to British writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch who wrote in his 1916 book On the Art of Writing: “If you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.’”

Since then, variations of Quiller-Couch’s phrase has been used by many writers and scholars. Stephen King had this to say on the art of writing in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

***

Today’s horoscope said, “A person who means well will throw a wrench into the works.”

That was the man who came to paint the front door. The go-between told me he would be here at 9:00 a.m. I was supposed to secure my cats before he arrived.

Securing cats meant I had to (1) get them into the bedroom and (2) keep them in the bedroom. There’s never a guarantee of either.

The only guarantee was that I would stay with them. They don’t like closed doors. I don’t like being stuck in the bedroom all day.

But I also don’t like my mattress to be shredded.

So I rose early, performed my usual exercise routine (Dear Abby, crossword puzzle, op-ed page, and letters to the editor), and considered the ordeal before me. I wished I had a can of tuna. I could have lured them upstairs with that.

But fate was on my side. Last night, according to vet’s orders, I drizzled olive oil over their midnight snack. They disapproved, so they didn’t eat it, so this morning they were hungry.

I grabbed a clean bowl and their food and climbed the stairs, crinkling the Friskies bag as I went. William and Ernest followed.

I plopped the bowl onto the middle of the bed and poured in a cup of kibble. William and Ernest followed.

I shut us in. William and Ernest leaped from the bed and prostrated themselves before the door. They reached under it with their little paws and stretched their little forelegs as far as they would go.

Knowing that within seconds they’d be using their little claws to bust out of the joint, I harrumphed as if I meant it. They ran under the bed.

I galloped downstairs and grabbed the laptop. I needed to work on my novel. There’s a manuscript contest coming up. I have a lot to do.

By the time the painter arrived at 12:25 p.m. (not his fault), we three had been sharing a cell for nearly four hours. I had canceled my lunch date. Ernest had eaten a few bites. He batted a few more bites onto the bedspread to use as pucks. Normally I would have discouraged this activity; today I saw it as a blessing.

William stayed under the bed sulking. When I lifted the bed skirt, he looked the other way. Even when I opened the blinds, he refused to come out.

Later I saw Ernest tiptoe to the door. He stretched out in a casual fashion. Then he lifted one paw and gave the door a pat. I harrumphed. Withdrawing the paw, he looked at me. Then he looked at the door. Then at me. Then at the door.

I won. He joined William under the bed.

He didn’t know that a third of that harrumph was aimed at the cramp in my back. Lying on my side to type wasn’t smart.

When fumes wafted up the stairs, I slid open the door to the balcony. The cats emerged. They lay side by side, listening to birds and enjoying the illusion of freedom. Then the yardmen turned on the mowers and the painter turned on the sander. William and Ernest scooted back under the bed.

Having scraped, sanded, and applied primer, the painter left at 2:30. I told the cats he was gone. They didn’t respond. By this time I was as stir crazy as they were. I wanted to crawl under the bed with them.

But I didn’t. I remembered the second part of my horoscope: “The element of unpredictability will be good for you, and so will the delay this causes.”

That sentence wasn’t so easily interpreted. On the one hand, the painter told me he refinishes furniture. I told him about my oak dining table. He said he could fix it.

Without doubt, that’s good for me. The table top has been teetering on the pedestal since ever since the movers got it off the truck and brought it inside. I’ve been expecting a lapful of lasagna for the past six months.

On the other hand, there’s the novel. Between cats, fumes, poor posture, and funk, I didn’t get much writing done. In that respect, the delay wasn’t good.

Tomorrow the painter will come back to paint. Friday he’ll come to replace the weather-stripping. That means two more days imprisoned with cats–if they’re dumb enough to cooperate, which is questionable–and two more days of potential writing avoidance.

When it comes to not writing, I prefer to invent my own excuses.

But what’s done is done. The milk has been spilt.

I’ll get up early in the morning. I’ll do whatever has to be done to return the cats to the slammer. I’ll borrow pillows from the guest room to better prop myself up.

I’ll bow my neck and put my shoulder to the wheel and my nose to the grindstone, and I will write and write and write.

But I’ll skip the horoscope. There’s no use borrowing trouble.