Thursday, October 13, 2011

A Writer's Despair

So I've been writing on envelopes and pads because I can't find my journals and notebooks, which are still in a box somewhere in the garage.  (I just spent a half hour looking for them.)  It's been just over a month, and I haven't finished unpacking my life and my office from the garage.  That's sad.  What's even worse--What made me think that I could go without writing so long that I didn't put my journals and notebooks in an easily accessible place?  Why not walk them up to my office like I did with my computer?  Have I been writing so erratically that I didn't even think about where I was putting them?  Yes, it's been over a month, I now realize, and I haven't written in them.  What the hell was I thinking?  So now I'm writing on a pad that someone gave me, and I'm thinking now of just taking CDs with me to work, and back home, so I can write on those on whatever computer I'm sitting beside.  (This is actually not a bad idea.  Maybe I should have done this anyway!)

I realize that I need to write a little bit throughout the day--wherever and whenever time allows--so that when I get home and need to work a lot more in the office, sitting down and writing won't be that new to me.  I've been having trouble lately just sitting my ass down, and I realize now--with the help of a writing group forum on LinkedIn (and thanks to anyone there who may be reading)--that this is due to the fact that writing is still not a consistent, everyday, blah experience to me, like sitting down to eat, for example.  I don't have to prepare too much for that, and I certainly don't procrastinate about eating, so why can't I also sit down and write?  This from a guy who has been published and paid for his writing (both as a reporter and short story writer) and who has written literally thousands of pages.  Yet writing now in my hectic life is a hassle.

Disheartening.  So I will write on these CDs and pads until I can find my journals and notebooks--and maybe even after I find them.  And I will write a little bit a few times per day so that when I get home to write, it's not such a big deal.  I will increase my output.

I will.

2 comments:

  1. One word - or thing : iPad. It beat carrying around my laptop and/or writing journal. Besides, with my boys, they scribble and draw on every available piece of paper.

    Here's another trick: Hold a pair of scissors while asking yourself where the lost item is. Then go search. It's an old wives tale - worked for me nine times out of ten. Very weird.

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  2. Maybe I'll get an iPad. Or a Tablet. I've been fighting the good fight of not giving in to the new thing, but I'll end up losing that. And Tablets look very cool.

    Scissors as a divining rod, huh? Good stuff. I'll check that out, as well. I just went down there and looked at the front of the garage, closest to the outside, the logic being that the first stuff moved will be towards the front. I found my pocket calendar and a couple of journals, but not the ones I was looking for. And I remember now that I may have first put boxes on or beneath the bench in the back of the garage first.

    ::sigh::

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