Write, Anyway.

There are moments, now and then. The seconds where things become incredibly clear, and all at once, you understand yourself and others better than before.

And usually, when you have a moment like that–no matter how much you’d like explain it to someone else–it’s something you just have to experience. There’s no way I could have explained this to the girl I was talking to, but… I know you will get it.

We’re both writers. We both have the same general dreams of getting published, and so forth. We talk, now and then, about what we’re working on.

She asked me how my project is going, and I had to ask whether she meant the website (I was checking stats) or the book. The book. Duh. Should’ve known that. I told her I was on chapter 26. She was impressed.

I asked her how her writing was going, and… well, she’s hit a dry spell. She told me about all the things that have come up. Computer down. No Microsoft Word. No battery. Too tired after a long day at work. Family. Activities at her church.

Life, in other words.

There was not one thing on her list that wasn’t… ordinary.

I sympathized, and gave her the websites for Libre Office and YWriter. Fixed the problems that could be fixed.

And maybe she believes that the right software will fix her problems.

I don’t.

I believe that I got through the conversation without laughing, shouting, or crying. I did not grab her by the shirt front and shake her. I didn’t even roll my eyes, and that was my accomplishment for the day.

The whole time she was “blocked,” I was writing. My sister died. I went on a necessity trip to another state to clean out her apartment. I made arrangements. I watched my family disintegrate.  I was writing, anyway.

I came back to work, and I’m still more or less balanced between bursting into tears and being angrier than I’ve ever been in my life, and I’m still writing.

Not as fast as during the good times. Probably not as well. But I kept up the blog, and I’m forcing out a few hundred words of (not quite palatable) fiction a day.

The girl I was talking to doesn’t know any of that.

She’s still looking for some other solution. And it’s too bad. She’s talented.

It takes time to write a book. Things happen. You write, anyway. A line, or two, or twenty. That’s how you write a book.

12 Comments

  1. Reply

    You know, you have a wonderful writing voice. I enjoy your posts a lot. The humor, the satire, the funny glimpse of life through your eyes. The life situation with you take or twist, however you look at it, on it. I think that girl needs to your blog because such a simple outlook and yet wise. She does not know the wisdom she is missing.

    • Reply

      Thank you! I appreciate the encouragement. I did give the girl my web address, but as far as I know, she’s never even peeked at it. Oh, well.

      • Reply

        Lordy, glad you know what I mean with all my left out words, lol. Geesh, I even reread it and did not catch the left out words. @@ Sorry.

        • Reply

          If it helps, I read the first comment, and didn’t catch the left out words, either. I guess my subconscious just knew what was supposed to be there!

  2. Reply

    I know what you mean. When I lost my 21-year-old son to suicide and had to deal with all those horrific decisions of caskets and grave sites and services and incoming family members, I had just started a new novel that I was very passionate about. I’m normally quite the planner, but I pantsed my way through this and, quite frankly, it may have saved my sanity.

    Life is hard. But writing is still the best medicine.

    • Reply

      Thank you. I needed to hear that. Can’t tell you how much. The blog has been that point of sanity for me, lately. Something sorta solid, while everything else is whirring around.

  3. Reply

    A well-known writer who was a close friend once said to me (referring to people who’d been in grad school with him), “Sometimes they are resentful. They want to know why I should have succeeded when they were just as talented. The answer is ‘I write.'”

  4. Reply

    Great advice! I think sometimes we’re so caught up in having the right cup of (fill-in-the-blank), or just the right time of day, or the right whatever that we forget we don’t necessarily need all of those external things, for lack of a better word. We just need to write.

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