I’ll be honest – I have a very difficult time doing things I don’t like to do. Like morning jogs, budgeting and “boring” daily routine kind of stuff. To my credit, I usually do what I have to do anyway, but repetitive, feet on the ground, roll up your sleeves and get the thang done kind of stuff requires a level of energy that I have to dig real deep to harness.
Like – writing for example. I “luuurve, loave, luff” to write. I adore words and their willingness to hold so much. I love to play with them, try new combinations– and see how much I can make them flex and bend without actually breaking them. When I’m in the mood to write – when I have to get an idea down on paper – then it’s like an open tap of mountain fresh writer’s nectar flowing from my heart, through my mind and out of my keyboard.
I love when that happens.
But it doesn’t usually happen like that.
Not even close.
Plenty of mornings, maybe even most, I sit in front of my computer screen like a spoiled child – waiting for a big, thick, black, southern, part grandmother-part sage, woman I call “Sweet Inspiration” to hold me in her loving arms and coax the writing nectar right out of me. She wears a flour dusted apron, smells like summertime and has a big gap in her front teeth. She says things like, “Come on honey-child, show me what you got today.”
But, she’s late… a lot; and, apparently has a lot of other clients. G-d only knows where that woman goes – but most mornings her big, warm arms feel a million miles away from me.
Times like these – like, literally, right now… is the time when I realize, that my job is to cowgirl up and do it anyway – even if I don’t feel like it.
Wah.
I usually have a little, inner tantrum for the first few minutes, scribble some notes about why I feel the way I do – (which rarely helps). Eventually, even if I’m writing total garbage that never picks up any steam, I walk away with a tiny, little slice of satisfaction in the knowing that I showed up and wrote anyway.
I’ve picked up a few tricks to help me stick it out when Sweet Inspiration is a no-show. I set a timer to give myself a starting and ending place –because “Sweet Overwhelm” is a hoodlum I try to avoid. I have a folder called “Works in Progress” which currently has about 35 files began as a good idea, but has yet to materialize into anything more than that. I know I can always go there if I’m hard up for a starting place. Also, I try not to surf the web before I sit down to write, because it seems that Sweet Inspiration has a jealous streak and is gets really shy when she’s over-exposed to the awesomeness of others.
Mostly I show up to write every day, so when Sweet Inspiration does show up I’ll be ready to make her proud.
She is a part of me – who I am and what I do – and few things feel better to my soul than seeing that wide toothed smile beaming back at me.