Oh, mercy.
This is going to take forever.
Do you know how there are some days when it all clicks? Whatever it is you’re doing, it just sort of happens? Those days are good, right? I have those days when I’m writing. Sometimes I can bust out a thousand words in an hour. One very memorable not-so-long-ago day, I wrote 500 totally keepable, emotionally-charged words in 20 minutes.
Today?
Not so much.
Last week, when the Kids were on Spring Break, I had a goal for 1,000 words a day. I totally made it, too. And they could be keepers. But something happened by Friday. The words came more and more slowly. Maybe the ideas were dumb. Maybe my brain is drying up. Maybe… maybe nothing. It was just hard. All the writing on Friday was hard. And it continued to be hard on Saturday.
And guess what? It’s being hard today. The words are not there, at the edge of my brain, ready to jump out of my fingers onto the keyboard. Do you know what they call this? This is WORK. I cringe at the confession that I hate to work. I like my words to burst out of me, flow, explode. At most today, they’re dripping. I have no sea of words. I have, at very best, a puddle. I have to really push it today. And it won’t happen in one sitting. I’m going to have to (*gasp*) Come Back to it. Ew. Don’t you know I prefer a job that I can start and finish in one sitting? (This is one reason I don’t sew. Also I can’t follow a straight line.)
So today, being a writer is work. But guess what. I’m still doing it. I’m sitting here, tapping out some words, and going to make muffins for breakfast and tapping out a few more and helping kids practice and tapping out another hundred and getting up to fold a load of laundry. Then I’m coming back. Tapping some more. Leaving again. Getting outside, hello, because suddenly it’s spring (3 inches of snow a week ago, but today? Spring). Having lunch with Kid 4 (because there are only 8 weeks left of the Kindergarten portion of my life, and I resolve to enjoy these weeks) and then tapping out some more. I will keep tapping it out until I make my goal number. And maybe it will come a little more easily tomorrow.
Maybe.
But until then, here’s this little thing we say around here when something is proving tricky: I’m a girl who can do hard things.
Tap. Tap.
Tap.
(8) Comments for this blog
Ahem. Seven and a half weeks of kindergarten left to go, thank you very much.
And it’s somewhat comforting to hear that the waterfall slows to a trickle for you at times. Let’s hope it starts gushing again soon.
Ahem. Seven and a half weeks of kindergarten left to go, thank you very much.
And it’s somewhat comforting to hear that the waterfall slows to a trickle for you at times. Let’s hope it starts gushing again soon.
Only eight more weeks of Kindergarten? Oh my! I didn’t realize school would be out so soon! Good luck with your 1000! =) You can do it!
Only eight more weeks of Kindergarten? Oh my! I didn’t realize school would be out so soon! Good luck with your 1000! =) You can do it!
I don’t know if you speak a foreign language or not, but sometimes I find writing to be like speaking Spanish.
I start out great; the words, the vocabulary, the verb tenses and conjugation – flowing like milk and honey.
But then I get tired. Or the story gets complicated. Or I can’t think of the right English word, so the Spanish word won’t come either. That’s when I start stumbling, slow down, add a lot of umms and errs and do a whole lot of starting over.
Finally, I resort to unconjugated verbs, zero articles, and charades. The well is dry. Time to either wrap up the conversation or admit defeat.
And that’s how I write. Only less intelligently. So sad.
I don’t know if you speak a foreign language or not, but sometimes I find writing to be like speaking Spanish.
I start out great; the words, the vocabulary, the verb tenses and conjugation – flowing like milk and honey.
But then I get tired. Or the story gets complicated. Or I can’t think of the right English word, so the Spanish word won’t come either. That’s when I start stumbling, slow down, add a lot of umms and errs and do a whole lot of starting over.
Finally, I resort to unconjugated verbs, zero articles, and charades. The well is dry. Time to either wrap up the conversation or admit defeat.
And that’s how I write. Only less intelligently. So sad.
Becca,
I feel this way too. When you have to pull the words out one by one it starts to seem too much like work. But when those words are flowing faster than your fingers can fly all the sudden it isn’t work but play. And I love to play and hate to work.
Thanks for reminding me I am not the only one out there who feels this way… and that I am a girl who can do hard things.
Becca,
I feel this way too. When you have to pull the words out one by one it starts to seem too much like work. But when those words are flowing faster than your fingers can fly all the sudden it isn’t work but play. And I love to play and hate to work.
Thanks for reminding me I am not the only one out there who feels this way… and that I am a girl who can do hard things.