Writing and life are like an old truck--but I don't know why.
I met with a friend yesterday, a friend who wants to write poetry or essays but seems to be afraid to start anything. Can't get anything going. Keeps putting off sitting down and scribbling. What can she do? she asked. What do you do? she asked. How do you get things down? How do you start?
We sat in a nearby cafe and chatted about it. She is a retired teacher and spent many long decades struggling to get her students to write--to just get something, anything down. We drank tea and ate and watched customers come and go and listened to the televisions behind the bar droning on about football while we mulled this over.
What do I do when I want to write and can't think of anything to say? I usually avoid that problem by not sitting down to write until I do have something to say. Sounds easy enough, but what if that goes on for a long time and your not writing anything and you really want to just write something? So, here we go. What's below this paragraph is the result of not having anything to say but wanting to write something just because it feels good:
We sat in a nearby cafe and chatted about it. She is a retired teacher and spent many long decades struggling to get her students to write--to just get something, anything down. We drank tea and ate and watched customers come and go and listened to the televisions behind the bar droning on about football while we mulled this over.
What do I do when I want to write and can't think of anything to say? I usually avoid that problem by not sitting down to write until I do have something to say. Sounds easy enough, but what if that goes on for a long time and your not writing anything and you really want to just write something? So, here we go. What's below this paragraph is the result of not having anything to say but wanting to write something just because it feels good:
Day-to-day life has a rhythm to it and a rhyme and we forget this at our peril. I just rolled out of bed, feet hit the floor, and the rhyme and rhythm of the day began with me stumbling around in my usual fog looking for my glasses. Once I find them, I can see out the back, upstairs windows down to the backyard for my first check on what's happening outside--another cool, clear day it would seem and no fox hanging out.
Down the stairs, clutching at the banister/railing for support, stepping carefully. I'm older now, more tentative. I greet my wife who was already up and getting ready to go to the "Y" for her morning swim. I admire my wife's determination and discipline but I'm over that early morning workout thing. Takes longer now for my bones to grease themselves up. I'll work out later.
Coffee--decaf, damn it, because of my recurrent heart arrhythmia--and a Zone bar to start. I pad around, looking out windows at the birds feeding at the feeders and drinking at the bird bath. Satisfied everything is in order, I remove my self to my cave, my study, my den, my "space." It's warm in there, with fat recliners in which I sit and write and think and nap and study Spanish and play guitar and sometimes watch TV.
I open up this laptop and log on and here I am, the early blogger seeking the blogger's elusive worm of public attention. I'm free to write what I want which is about anything that comes into my mind and so far I don't have anything of any particular interest to say. Can't think of a thing, in fact. So this yammering you're reading is just practice, really, at just writing. Just getting something down, just for the hell of it, because it feels good to see my thoughts emerge through the tips of my fingers onto the blank page. When I write I feel like a musician, a jazz pianist say, improvising on his keyboard.
Today is Saturday and Terry leaves tomorrow for two weeks in Atlanta on FEA biz. I'll spend time with her today and drive her to the airport tomorrow morning and then I'm on my own, the Two-Week Bachelor. I'll focus on my writing and book promotion while she's gone. I started writing my next novel this week. On the second chapter and it feels like I'm back home where I belong.
So, there it is--nothing. I just wrote about nothing and it was fun. I got something down that started nowhere and went nowhere else. I just enjoyed feeling my fingers moving across the keyboard and watching the words appear on the screen through the magic of technology. It felt like I was playing piano in an old bar where no one was really listening and no one cared what I played so I just improvised and noodled along.
Down the stairs, clutching at the banister/railing for support, stepping carefully. I'm older now, more tentative. I greet my wife who was already up and getting ready to go to the "Y" for her morning swim. I admire my wife's determination and discipline but I'm over that early morning workout thing. Takes longer now for my bones to grease themselves up. I'll work out later.
Coffee--decaf, damn it, because of my recurrent heart arrhythmia--and a Zone bar to start. I pad around, looking out windows at the birds feeding at the feeders and drinking at the bird bath. Satisfied everything is in order, I remove my self to my cave, my study, my den, my "space." It's warm in there, with fat recliners in which I sit and write and think and nap and study Spanish and play guitar and sometimes watch TV.
I open up this laptop and log on and here I am, the early blogger seeking the blogger's elusive worm of public attention. I'm free to write what I want which is about anything that comes into my mind and so far I don't have anything of any particular interest to say. Can't think of a thing, in fact. So this yammering you're reading is just practice, really, at just writing. Just getting something down, just for the hell of it, because it feels good to see my thoughts emerge through the tips of my fingers onto the blank page. When I write I feel like a musician, a jazz pianist say, improvising on his keyboard.
Today is Saturday and Terry leaves tomorrow for two weeks in Atlanta on FEA biz. I'll spend time with her today and drive her to the airport tomorrow morning and then I'm on my own, the Two-Week Bachelor. I'll focus on my writing and book promotion while she's gone. I started writing my next novel this week. On the second chapter and it feels like I'm back home where I belong.
So, there it is--nothing. I just wrote about nothing and it was fun. I got something down that started nowhere and went nowhere else. I just enjoyed feeling my fingers moving across the keyboard and watching the words appear on the screen through the magic of technology. It felt like I was playing piano in an old bar where no one was really listening and no one cared what I played so I just improvised and noodled along.
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