2008
to the center of the city where all roads meet
maura @ 10:29 pm
When do you write? Yes, I’m asking you.
(And if you = Anne then you have three where I only have one so surely if you can find time to write then I should be able to, too!)
No, really, when do you write? I would like to write more. Not even necessarily blag or scholarship or journal but anything, just anything. That new Lynda Barry book has plenty of prompts, just in case I get stuck.
Right now my weekdays are like this: get up, get ready for work, eat breakfast (and make sure Gus does, too), leave for work around the same time that Jonathan takes Gus to camp, work, come home, eat dinner, hang out with Gus a bit, either do the dishes or get Gus ready for bed (we switch off), make my lunch, download my email…and then it’s 9pm, if not later.
I’m pretty tired by then, and it’s hard to write. If I have a deadline I can do it (tea at dinner helps). But even my journal lately, when I write in the evenings, has been all “blah blah blah, I’m so tired, there’s never any time, blah blah blah.”
People say to get up early and write. It sounds torturous to get up any earlier than 6:45, but maybe I will give it a try. Of course I’d have to go to bed earlier too. Maybe I should be writing at lunchtime. Seems like it could be kind of pleasant to go sit on the plaza and write for a bit.
4 comments on “to the center of the city where all roads meet”
Yeah, I try to do the pretend to go to work thing on Summer Fridays, and that usually works. It’s the shoehorning it into the rest of my life that I can’t seem to get a grip on. When we go back to non-summer Fridays next week we will go back to 1 hr for lunch, so maybe I will go out + write more @ lunch.
Yes, the new Lynda Barry book is great! It’s art + stories, very pretty. Ask for it for Xmas (it’s just around the corner)!
At work, I write while waiting for other people to get back to me. Seriously, they want you to treat it like an emergency, but take their own time to give you feedback on a “rush” job.
I also write while eating lunch at my desk. I don’t enjoy extreme temperatures, delicate hothouse flower that I am, so this is particularly true in summer and winter.
I’ve also been known to write while sitting in front of the tv.
Lunchtime I think will be the right time for me, too, except on the days that I need to run errands. And my reassigned time (days that I get to spend working on research + publication stuff) kicks in Sept. 1, w00t!
My best days are when I pretend to go to work. I let Ben know ahead of time. Then I pack up everything and run down to the court-o-rama satellite office (cleverly disguised as a coffee shop/chess haven/art gallery) and stay until my batteries run out or until they kick me out or until I feel too guilty to go on. I can usually manage to do this once or twice a month.
Have not had a chance to do that in awhile tho because Ben is screening in the back porch, fixing the dining room sunken floor, fixing the back stairs, and getting ready to paint our room.
Do you like the new Lynda Barry book? I saw it on her website and thought it looked good. I mean, what doesn’t? She’s a fellow Corn Palace fan. What’s not to like?
The thing that made me LOL in the hospital waiting room was the Roz Chast book, can’t recall a title, but there was one called Home Economics with old parents who save everything! (“But they’re made of *metal*!” = old band-aid boxes!) Life, meet art.