What I Need to Do

I need to be writing. Right now. Working on the novel I hope to publish one day. What am I doing? Watching a tv show I really can’t stand, and checking the dryer to see if my clothes are done knowing full well it will buzz as loud as all blazes when my clothes are nice and toasty. Shame on me.

Well now that I’ve gotten that guilty confession off my chest, I think I’ll do some writing. After I stop to get some food, put sheets on my bed, paint my toenails…..

 

The Smell of a Notebook

There are many things that can inspire a writer. A pretty face, a spring morning, the way the sun sparkles off the dew drops on the petals of a slowly budding rose. For me, it is notebooks. The way they look, the way the pages fall, line width, line color, cover design, the way the pages feel, what it sounds like when I open it, if it lies flat or if it refuses to stay open, what kind of pens and pencils will be used to write in it, the list goes on and on. Notebooks to me are synonymous with the revered wide-margined gilded cover publications heralded in Charles Chesnutt’s short story “Baxter’s Procrustes” (a good and entertaining read by the way, well worth the fifteen minutes it takes to read it). Baxter’s Procrustes

When I pick up a notebook, my mind whirls with all the wonderful things I can write in them. With each one I buy there is an invisible dedication inscribed on the first page (I never EVER write on the very first page, call it superstition if you want) speaking of how it will be the catalyst for the next best-selling novel. Oh if only I could make that a reality.

What actually happens is this.

I buy the notebook and carry it around with me. Should inspiration strike I am ready with my notebook and pen, free to write to my heart’s content without the limitations of setting up a computer. Eventually I put it on a shelf, caressing the spine with a promise that I will soon fill it with words just as soon as my back stops hurting from hauling around its extra weight. It ends there. An empty notebook–still inspiring–yet empty.

To date I have 45 notebooks. None of them are more than 1/4 of the way filled.

I still get giddy looking at them. Occasionally I pick one up and carry it around again, knowing that today will be the day I begin writing some epic work of literature. Honestly, I’m afraid to spoil those perfect empty pages. It is so much easier to imagine perfect little pieces of literary heaven on blank pages then sitting down to write said words. In a sick, sad little way the very thing that inspires me also keeps me from getting much writing accomplished.

I’m not afraid of a lot of things (other than spiders and things that go gurgle, scream, creak, roar, drip, tock, whistle in the dark after a scary movie) but who would have thought leaflets of bound, blank pages could be so frightening? I hear that some authors feel the same way about a blank word processing screen with the blinking vertical line and all, but at the very least you can type nonsense and then delete it. The same can’t be done so easily once you write it down. A part of me feels like this is utter foolishness, but I also feel that this is a serious issue that someone else may suffer from.

What say you?