Lies Writers Tell

“Anyone who says he wants to be a writer and isn’t writing, doesn’t.”
– Ernest Hemingway

Okay, so Mr. H. knew a thing or two about writing, but sometimes when *life* gets into the act, it doesn’t seem quite that simple.

An RWA chapter I visited recently holds a monthly challenge to encourage productivity. Members put their writing goals for the coming four weeks and a dollar bill into an envelope. At the next meeting, the writers who achieved their goals have their names put in a hat, and one person’s name is drawn to win the whole pot.

At the meeting I attended, only six members had entered the challenge (though I’m told sometimes as much as $30 is on the line). The goals in question ranged from “write 8000 words” to “start writing again.” And only two people had done what they planned to do.

This led to a discussion among the women at my table. We cared enough about being writers to drag our butts to an evening meeting, yet we all had to admit we pretty much… weren’t writing.

We had a variety of excuses. We’re writers – of course we know how to come up with stories.

Member 1 – “I’m pregnant and I had morning sickness.” Only she acknowledged the morning sickness had ended after the first trimester. And she also allowed as how, once she stopped being pregnant, she’d have a new excuse – “I have a new baby.”

Me – “I just moved.” But I had to admit “just” had stretched out to over three months, I was all settled in at my new job, and everything I realistically expected to unpack was already unpacked. My excuse was sounding paper thin.

Guest No. 2 – “My job is sucking the soul out of me.” Okay, at one time or another, most of us have “been there, done that, got the T-shirt.” But when the day job is unsatisfying, isn’t that when we most need the creative outlet writing provides?

All right, maybe it really *is* as simple as Ernie boy said. There's no perfect time to write. Life is always happening and will always be happening. If we want to, we’ll always be able to find an excuse not to write. If, on the other hand, we want to be writers, then we have to write. Butt in chair, hands on keyboard. End of story. Or rather, beginning of story… lots of wonderful stories.

So, what are your excuses for not writing, and how do you talk yourself out of them?

What Now?

I admit it. For the last few months I've been horribly derelict in my duties as a Diva. While I was buying a home, selling a home, moving 1600 miles, and starting a new job, as well as recovering from the emotional hangover that came with the end of the America's Next Best Celler contest, I kept letting the blog fall to the bottom of my priority list.

Hell, I kept letting everything about writing fall to the bottom of my priority list. My muse stopped talking to me.

Now I've been in my new city for three weeks. I'm getting settled in. My condo is in a brand-spanking-new building right downtown. I'm within walking distance of the Alamo and the riverwalk, where the fiesta attitude and energy pulse nonstop. The neighborhood's filled with a colorful variety of people from tourists to Air Force basic trainees out on passes to panhandlers. There's plenty to get the creative juices flowing.

And my office is in a wonderful old building with a carved wood ceiling in the lobby (see pic) and rumor has it, a ghost or two -- not your typical Federal box. From 1937 to 1996 it was a hospital, and I'm told the area where my office is located used to be the nursery. That has to be good juju, don't you think?

I thought I'd have to hit the ground running, as the Army puts it, at the new day job. I had two hearings scheduled within my first month. But things didn't go as planned -- in a good way. One case settled, the other was dismissed by the judge at the last minute. For the moment anyway, things are under control.

In short, I've run out of excuses. It's time to get back to writing. Past time, I hear my muse grumble. Point taken.

So, now what? Do I go back to either of the light paranormals I started over the last couple of years? I started both with boatloads of enthusiasm and ideas I thought were unique, or at least not totally done to death. Somehow I ran out of steam both times. I need to decide if either manuscript is salvageable, or if I should start something new.

And what do I do with my fourth place-finishing Next Best Celler entry, Confessions of the World's Oldest Shotgun Bride? Rewrite it as erotica? Submit it to some e-publishers? Feed it to the paper shredder? (Just checking to see if you were paying attention with that last part - I wouldn't disrespect my work that way).

I have all kinds of options. But one of them isn't to keep pushing my writing to the margins of my life. I'm a writer. Writers write, everyone else makes excuses. It's time to get back to work.