Friday, April 24, 2009

Profound Writer Thoughts

Ha!

Yesterday was take your kids to work day at my husband's job. I would have had several hours to write in complete SILENCE, but my eldest son had piano guild and I had to drive him there, wait for him to complete 45 minutes of evaluation and then drive him back to my husband's workplace. Although I was supposed to pick the kids up sometime after lunch, I figured I'd rush home and write for an hour and a half while the house was empty (and what a blessed thing that is!).

So, off I went. Back to the house and the computer.

That's where things got dicey.

My intentions were good, but I started having an internal dialogue that went something like this -

"Shirlee, you need to sit down at the computer and write."

"I would, but I'm hungry. I need to eat."

"You need to write."

"But I can't write when I'm hungry. I might actually lose weight and what a catastrophe that would be." Cue violin music here.

"You NEED TO WRITE."

"Okay, I need to write. But do I want to write? I mean really want to?"

"Yes. You want to write because you need to write, because you get paid to write, because you actually enjoy writing. So WRITE."

At which point I sat myself down in front of the computer, pulled up my manuscript and would like to say I began writing.

But that would be a lie and lies are not allowed in Love Inspired (not to mention the fact that God strictly prohibits them).

So, I decided I needed to check on a few blogs I follow, but the entire time I perused the blogs, that annoying voice in my head was chanting, WRITE, WRITE, WRITE, WRITE.

And the other voice (because, of course, there are two) was whining, I JUST WANT TO RELAX FOR A FEW MINUTES.

And finally the chanting, annoying voice won out. I started writing. The words started flowing. I forgot I was hungry and that I'd rather read a few blogs and relax. I forgot writing was work that I wasn't sure I felt like doing. The ideas burst onto the page in words and phrases for ten whole minutes.

And then the phone rang. It was my husband, telling me it was time to pick the kids up. I saved my manuscript, walked out my front door, and a little voice whispered in head, "see, I TOLD you you should have started writing as soon as you got home!"

So, in case you're ever wondering what goes through my head before I begin writing...refer to this post. It explains everything! And in case you ever start having a similar internal dialogue with yourself...go with the voice that's screaming WRITE. It'll save you time, because for authors, that voice always wins in the end.

4 comments:

Sabrina L. Fox said...

LOL. You're funny. Ironic how you seem to know the dialogue going through my head.

Shirlee McCoy said...

I think it must be a universal author's internal dialogue!

Dani said...

I'll ditto that :)

Whenever I heed the WRITE voice, the words end up flowing and I feel so much better, so productive. Whenever I ignore it, I get grouchy and feel lousy about wasting time. You'd think we'd learn ;)

Courtney said...

I'm just as amateur writer(or wanna-be writer), but I completely relate to this post! But, once I start writing, the hours evaporate until the next time I look at the clock it reads 11:00 p.m.

Haha! Nice insight into a published writer's thoughts.