Sunday, June 19, 2011

Writing is hard. If you care about it and want to do it well, it's difficult. If anyone tells you that writing is easy, they are trying to sell you something, and it's probably software that "smooths" the writing process.

The lack of pre-ground cinnamon in the cupboard for your coffee means that you'll go to the trouble of grating it from cinnamon sticks. Why not? You've got the time. You're only writing. Instead of squishing the carpenter ant that is mapping out your writing space, you watch it bumble over the berber toward the snoozing cat. There's a lot of hair twirling and mosquito bite scritching (I draw little x's in the center of the bumps with my fingernail) involved with writing, and plenty of staring out into the sunny yard. Then finally, if you're lucky, something clicks, and off you go, smashing through letters. It's almost enjoyable, until your neighbor cranks up his plaid music and coughs like he caught a hornet's nest in his lung. You shut the door. The coffee is too strong.

4 comments:

Mike Lindgren said...

Too-strong coffee can be effectively salvaged by spiking it emphatically with rum.

Jenny Hill said...

Mmm. Or vanilla ice cream.

Indigo Bunting said...

The last sentence slapped me in the face. Brava!

lisahgolden said...

You've described perfectly any given day of writing for me. I was even twirling my hair as I read this post.