Bleh. BLEH!
What I have is not writers’ block. What I have is writers’ apprehension.
As I work on my second book, the apprehension goes like this: “What if I spend a bunch of time writing this and it sucks? What if I spend hours writing this and then, way later, realize that it’s not worth finishing? What if writing this doesn’t make me any money or improve my life in any way – only fills my children, as future adults, with memories of Mommy ignoring them to write some profitless book while they had to feed themselves popcorn for dinner? What if – oh, man – what if there’s something really good on TV right now and I’m missing it?”
My plan was to do four pages a day. I did it very well for five days. Now I’m not doing anything but wasting time avoiding my four pages.
I’m going to take a week of vacation in January. I’m going to FORCE MYSELF to write. No phones. No TV. No kids. No boyfriend. No excuses.
My goal is to write enough during that week so that I’m past the halfway point. That, I figure, is the point of no return.
The One Thing I’m Actually Accomplishing Every Day, Effortlessly
Every single week day, someone at my job tells me that my hair grows quickly.
I know.
When they say it, it’s with this singular astonishment that I don’t know how to address. Do I thank them? It never seems like I should. I’m often tempted to tell them that my nails grow fast, too. That seems like bragging, though. Sometimes I consider voicing aloud my theory that Latinas grow hair faster. And I am half Latina. So I grow my hair slower than full Latinas, but faster than white people. But that sounds sort of politically incorrect, doesn’t it? Or, if they seem a little jealous, I could point out that, when I wanted my hair short, I had to spend extra money to cut it all the time. But that seems ungracious to my own hair, whose rapid growth I do appreciate very much, now that I want it to be long.
So, what happens is, when the one person per day tells me that my hair grows fast, or that my hair is so much longer than it was when I first started working in this building, or that my hair is getting so, so, so LONG, I just say one thing.
I say, “I know.”
[POST DELETED]
I got half way through an entry here about my boyfriend Tad and something he’s been doing lately, but then I realized that it was coming out way too smarmy. Way, way, way too smarmy and gushy and thow-uppy-nice.
So, instead, I will paraphrase what I just deleted in a less smarmy way:
Hey, everybody… my boyfriend Tad is so awesome. He is, like, so awesomely sweet. Whenever I think about Tad, it’s like thinking about a million pieces of candy in the shape of a hundred bunnies in the shape of man. Tad has rainbows and smiling birdies floating around his head. I just heart Tad! Tad, Tad, Tad!
There. Now you can go back to what you were doing, safe from excessive smarm.
