Storms

There was a storm today. It came like a ninja – Silent and Sudden and Deadly. It was over in twenty minutes but up until that point I was afraid I would die as the building imploded under the load of rain and falling trees. Afterward, when the rain had mostly stopped and the sky lightened, I went outside because the power was out. Amazing things happen when electricity disappears. Everyone was outside. People were social, milling about talking to folks. A young couple was taking a walk in the rain and jumping in large puddles. A few other folks were clustered around a tree that had fallen on a trio of cars. Everyone was talking and laughing and children were playing. It felt like Utopia. It wasn’t a writerly moment at all. It was full of cliché’s and cheesy happiness: Pardon me while I puke. Still, I had been sitting at the computer all day waiting for inspiration to strike me and it didn’t even come close until the storm.

No power = sudden cheesy happiness? Makes me wonder if we, in all the glory of technology, have lost something vital to our humanity.

Writer's "Block"

Over the holiday, I thought a lot about topics to write about. Thinking about writing makes me feel like I am actually doing work while I am really just swimming or day dreaming or drinking bourbon with a squeeze of lemon (excellent, by the way. You should try it.)

I had some great stuff with firework metaphors (perfect, right?) and something about barbecuing -- really stellar -- None of it, though, really focused on the challenge that every writer encounters: The challenge to produce work.

I struggle every day just to sit down at my computer and pound out a paragraph before I succumb to the distraction of a word, a song, or a daydream floating in my head. And while I am sure that some small part of it has to do with the allusiveness of inspiration, I am also certain that most of my problem has more to do with fear than anything else. I am terrified of producing crappy work, so in an effort to prevent that certainty from happening, I produce nothing. Anything I manage to eek out gets over analyzed and dismissed by my overactive self criticism before it can ever develop into anything remotely close to complete. 

Okay, so I have diagnosed the problem. What can I do about it?

1. Create a low-stress writing outlet.

A blog for example? Great. I've already got one of those. This solution stuff is going to be easier than I thought.

Blogging provides a writer with a reason to write every day without the added pressure for everything to be perfect and brilliant. After all, it's just a blog. Once a writer gets in the habit of sitting down every day and writing for a half hour or so, half the battle is won.

2. Free Write

Yeah, I know free-writing is cliched advice and I know it normally doesn't work but I don't expect anyone to do that free association Freudian crap. Write something you are interested in and don't expect it to turn into anything publishable. Sure, make it cohesive. Don't float random words on the page like a hippie, but don't put pressure on yourself to make this an art piece. Instead, focus on the rhythm of writing and concentrate on your sentences. Something might come out of this exercise that can be expanded but even if it doesn't, the act of writing itself will loosen your creative juices and concentrating on your word choice and sentence development is a good exercise for any writer, so you're not wasting your time.

3. Walk Backward

Is this Voodoo? No. It's a way of getting your mind unstuck by doing something you don't normally do. Do you have to walk backward? Of course not. Just doing something out of the ordinary will work. Take a different route on your daily walk through the park. Go on a bike ride. Rock climb. I do advise you do something physical ( don't just buy a new video game to play or watch CBS instead of FOX. I don't think that will work.)

While you are participating in your chosen new experience, think about all the sensory elements. What does the air smell like? How does the sun (or the cold) feel on your skin? Do you hear sounds? What are they? Where are they coming from? Can you develop origin stories for the sounds?

This may seem pointless but try it anyway. You may return to your computer with a new story or scene taken directly from your experience or, at the very least, you will return refreshed from physical exercise and mentally renewed from the change in scenery.

4. Discipline

Fundamentally, the hardest step is the last one. Discipline. The word alone evokes nasty images of drill sergeants or screaming children getting spanked. Discipline, though, just means a regimen that develops or improves a skill.

The regimen of daily writing is the most important step in producing work. I know it is hard. I know your brain screams at you and everything you produce is crap and ends up getting trashed anyway. I know. But write anyway. Write every day. Eventually something you pound out will have some merit.

My dad used to tell me Writer's write. It's obvious, sure, but think about what is hidden behind those words. Many people are "aspiring writers." What holds them back? Discipline. Many other less talented people have made a living doing that very thing of which more talented "aspiring writers" only dream. What sets them apart? Just their ability to glue their butt in a chair and write their hearts out.

Workday Woes

 

First and foremost, I am a writer. When I’m not doing that, however, I make money any way I can. Right now, while I am patiently waiting to start my glorious teaching career in August, I work at a fast food restaurant for $7.25 per hour.

Today was my first day off this week and when I woke this morning, just one thing was on my mind: Tomorrow I have to go to work again. Even as I had that groggy, half formed thought, another part of me screamed at the wrongness of letting a fast food restaurant consume me so utterly. I know it’s absurd and yet each work day, I push away the panic that rises in my chest, breathe deeply, and dress in a disgusting polyester uniform, all the while telling myself that it will all be over in eight hours. I can last for eight hours. I think I can, I think I can…

Why does the thought of spending eight hours smiling and taking orders, bagging food, and stocking fill me with such terror? I don’t know. I really don’t. I have tried to analyze the situation. I’ve thought of possible reasons – coworkers, customers; the stress of rushes; the heat of spending summer in a poorly air-conditioned kitchen. None of this, though, adds up to the amount of stress I go through every day. All I want, in fact, is to be able to quit. Soon that will be a reality but I fear it may not be soon enough.

This suffering affects my life beyond work as well. When I come home I feel emotionally drained. I am incapable of writing and, usually, I just fall asleep for a couple of hours and wake with a headache. My only enjoyable days are my days off and even those are dampened by the awareness that so soon they will be over and I will have plod off to yet another day of mind numbing boredom.

Maybe that’s it. As I said it, the reasoning made so much sense. The boredom is what gets to me. That is what causes me so much stress. I am forced into eight hours of terrifying mindlessness. Questioning gets reprimanded. Conversations are trivial (career fast food workers don’t read Nietzsche. They read Danielle Steele). It is in these moments that I feel my soul strangling for air.

Sadly, this is the environment in which most Americans spend their lives -- the prison of the mind. For some, that prison of mundane sameness may not be a prison at all. Some people find security in knowing exactly what will happen day after day for the rest of their lives. There is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I long to be one of those people myself. For the select few, though, who realize our predicament and long for escape, not into laziness but into honest, creative productivity, I suggest guerilla warfare. One day at a time we will storm the prison gates and take back our lives from the clutches of those pudgy balding men in stained shirt sleeves and ugly wrinkled women in power suits!

Step One: Coffee.