One could go on and on forever talking about anything, but I'll just touch on it here.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Summer Writing: Places and Distractions


This is the chair where ideas stumble from my overcrowded brain and land on the white-page screen of my MacBook. I discovered the surest way I would get them to make the trip was if I forced myself to settle into this spot for writing and not leave until writing happened.



Sure, staring happens here too. And reading. And rereading. Deleting. Deciding. Sometimes only a couple of sentences survive the brain-to-screen express. Sometimes the topic changes trains mid-journey. Such as now, though writing about my writing habits, my brain reminds me of the following grocery-store scene from a few hours ago:

_____A two or three-year-old girl sitting in the shopping cart in line ahead of me says to her mother, in an uh-oh-look-out tone: “I think I’m getting distracted.” Her mother asks what is distracting her. “I think I’m getting distracted by those piñatas.” I look over my shoulder and see dozens of the colorful candy holders hanging above the bread aisle. The girl focuses on one in particular and tells it: “Hi unicorn. I’ll be getting you for my birthday.”_____

If only I could share this in her own precocious little voice.

So anyway, here I sit writing. I slouch. I put my feet on the stool. I turn this way, that way. My laptop starts burning my lap. I yawn. My fingers rest on the keys. I look at the keys and think about cleaning them. I need to clean the floor too. The neighbor kids are outside yelling to their dog. This chair is cozy. I could take a nap here. NO. STOP. This is WRITING time. Ooh! The ice cream truck is going by— 

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