Ducks swimming
I’ve been redoubling my efforts on All In Bad Time, having got a huge boost of motivation from last week’s Colorado Gold Writers Conference. The speakers were terrific, the panels were timely and, for the most part, dead-on. But what made me excited about getting back to work (aside from abject terror at not being finished yet) was hanging out with my fellow attendees.
The writers I encountered were hellbent on writing their books. You can’t be around that flavor of determination for three days without revving up your own dammit-I-can-do-this spirit. I churned out a fair number of pages this week, despite a crash of our entire communications system, from phone to internet to TV. It was like living in 1960 again. I found myself looking for an apron to put over the house dress I wear to clean house (not!) and had to restrain myself from leaning out the front door to yell for Beaver to come home. (I have no son named Beaver.)
The important thing was, my Word program still worked and–Holy Distraction, Batman–since I couldn’t play any of the games I use to “get my ducks in a row”, I just wrote. My ducks were all over the place, but I wrote. Could it be that my sacred build-up to writing has been yet another way to put off writing? Surely I wouldn’t do that to myself. Would I?
The simple truth? The ducks have been trying to tell me for years they do better on every project when they’re all over the place. Guess I’d better listen to them.
Writer in the Garret 