So, for those of you who follow me (and I must say that I appreciate every one of you) you know that I’m writing a book. Or attempting to write a book. And by ‘attempting to write a book’ I mean unsuccessfully filling blank pages with words that may or may not be completely useless phrases strung together with a flurry of punctuation. Yes. That’s exactly what I’m doing right now, and I’m rolling my eyes at myself. ‘Come on,’ I tell myself, ‘it shouldn’t be this hard,’ again an eye roll, ‘hundreds of people get books out every year that don’t have as much time as you or don’t follow any logical sentence structure and they still find time to find someone to publish them…’ This is a constant argument that I have with myself, in my head of course because having it out loud would mean that I’m crazy, and I still can’t find the fire that I need to keep myself rolling. And by ‘rolling’ I mean find a steady pace with which words flow freely from my mind down through my fingers and alight prettily in a special font on my gargantuan computer screen. Try saying that five times fast.
And so, lately, I’ve taken to extremes. Nothing weird or abnormal mind you, although at this point perhaps that’s what I need to try in order to get my brain functioning properly, but what a friend and fellow writer told me to try was this: pick an alcohol. Okay, after looking in my freezer, I had whiskey or tequila. My spicy roommate is more for the Ta-kill-ya, so I pulled out the whiskey and put it on the counter. She then told me to pour three fingers, add a few ice cubes, and a splash of Coke if necessary, and proceed to get drunk. She swears by it. So, that’s what I attempt to do. I sit at my computer, brain fuzzy, and start writing what I think is fantastic stuff. Character development, plotline, amazing descriptions of places, visualizations of a map to use for the realm I’ve created. I think that I should do this more often, that writing is easy when I’ve been drinking because I don’t hold back…. Ya come to find two days later when I finally reread what I wrote that it’s all shit. And not even potentially-workable-shit. I mean I-must-have-put-more-whiskey-in-my-glass-than-I-thought-shit. Needless to say, I erased the whole thing (measly 3 pages anyway) and now I’ve started over. Sober. But I’m stuck again.
I’ve tried to do the whole clearing of the mind, putting myself in a calm, clear state, but my upstairs neighbors make that nearly impossible no matter what time of day it is. My lack of focus is really irking me, and now I’m whining to you. I feel that I’ve been doing a lot of unnecessary whining lately, and I apologize to those who have heard it outside of the writing realm. My inattentiveness might stem from the fact that even though I’m incredibly busy, I’m also bored, and when I’m bored there seems to be a lack of focus. I’ve said it before and here I go saying it again, I think I have a form of ADHD when it comes to writing a book. Whine, whine, whine, bitch, bitch, complain. Okay, I’m done. Thanks for listening.
Squirrel!
There I go again… onto the next project.
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