Sitting staring at a blank blank blank page

I will tell you, some days the words drip easily from the fingers and other days, it's like pulling teeth.  Today, I root canaled the words. 

The reality of writing is to write.  You can call yourself a writer, but unless you write, you're a pretender.   So I'm putting these stupid words here, trying to coax some thought out of my brain other than the thoughts I've had before.  All these blogs, from 2006 to now, and I look at older stuff and wonder, where did my imagination go?  Where did my loopy sense of humor that let me lace what happened today with something else and make it sing? 

Am I overtired or bored or is nothing happening?  Yes. No. No.  Lots happens, but it's teenage stuff and as such, more complicated and less something to expose.  Teens ought to have the safety and security of being able to be adolescents in all its messiness without the exposure of the internet.  So the stories of the day go unsung except for how the fifteen year old discovered he likes to do the dishes if he gets to pick all the songs on Alexa while he does it. I told him he could take Alexa to every room in the house if he wishes. 

Much of parenting teens is biting your tongue, and that includes with the stories you tell or don't tell on a blog.   They jump from wanting to watch cartoons (yes) to asking if we can get cell phones (no) to wanting to play basketball to sleeping in, to ordering pizza to stating they're on a diet, all within five minutes.   They want to learn to drive and are scared to answer the actual phone and talk to a real person.   They love gift cards but fear paying for groceries with cash.   It's a bizarre thing to be a mom to these people who can dance a floss but not floss their teeth, who play video games with aplomb but can't type.   

I'd love to tell you I have a serious point to all this meandering, but I haven't learned it yet.  I only know, as stressful and crazy and contradictory as it is, this time when they're not yet adult but no longer child is both agonizingly and mercifully short.   Enjoy the pizza and the modern music and remember to embarrass them every so often by trying to sing along or dance.  They'll roll their eyes but they'll also appreciate it.   

Teens are like writing on the blank blank page.  You have to love them, you have to work on helping them live and grow up.  You must keep at it even when it's not easy and not fun.  However, if you keep at it, there's a full page, and if you let yourself write, if you let yourself chase down the rabbit hole of thoughts, you'll find some pretty loopy and imaginative elements along the way.   That's how it is with writing.  You become more of a writer by writing. That's how it is with parenting teens, you become more what you must, when you love more each day.   

Blocking Writing

Every once in a while, I get an undisclosed melancholy which accompanies acute writers' block.

My writing coach doesn't believe such a thing as writers' block exists.  He cajoles, "Write about what a jerk I am for saying otherwise if nothing else." in fewer words.

I can, but the goal of writing isn't to merely be clever, the point is to discover something within the uncarved marble of the mind, which when fully chiseled out, is beautiful and solid and worth preserving.  So I sat musing, why do I want to find these beautiful words, what's the point of it?

Is it glory for me?  Well, I'll admit, it really was and used to just be...because part of me, a part I'm not overly proud of, felt myself somehow trivial.  It's not a nice thought, that I belittled my own vocation in my own eyes.  I wonder if I did so to my children too.

Being published was something of a rush, still is, but like any addiction, it satisfies less with each hit, because I find myself scrambling to carve out the next piece.  Good poems are never finished, only abandoned.  Good columns, well, I find they all look like prom pictures.  In the moment, they are beautiful, cool, and I want to share them with everyone.  In the glare of the next day, under the gaze of time and judgment, I find them less lovely, more awkward and indicative of all the ways in which I don't know myself or my own faults than anything else.   Do I still want to write columns? Yes.  I'd just like them to be more thoughtful, less rushed.  Not sure how to do that...


I do know why I began.  It began as an escape.  Everyone else goes to school or work and I was here, decade after decade, folding socks, doing dishes, working out at the gym sometimes and wondering, where is the more?  What is the more?  Why can't I do more?  God laughed at my feeling insignificant and gave me more...and more...and more...until I stopped thinking, I want to do more and started saying, "I want to do something different."  God gave me more...and it was different.  So I stopped saying "I want."  

I started working at a high school and found myself wishing for the minutes at home, not because I didn't like the work or the people or the job, but because I now couldn't pour out the minutes like water on my family.  I couldn't justify holing up with the computer to write when I'd been away all week, but when I'd get to the weekend, I didn't want to pour out the minutes like water, I felt somehow, shouldn't I keep them?

 Reminded of Bilbo and the ring, I horded minutes, when that was precisely what I should not do.  At which point, I understood my own weaknesses.  A child cannot comprehend why they cannot eat all the candy.   They just know, they want it.  So I'm praying, God, be merciful and do not give me what I want, but what you want.  Otherwise, please please please, don't listen to me.  Ignore me.    

So what is the point of all of this? Why do you write Sherry?

So I can learn what I'm supposed to be doing, why, and how to go about doing it. I told my writing coach.  He said, "I could have fixed it much faster if you'd just written about what a jerk I am."

Next time.

1000 Stories, 1000 Words, Even More Memories

My brain today announced, “Due to excessive lack of use, the management has declared it will no longer take requests from the general public to perform on demand.”  I offered to eat fish.  I offered to exercise.  I even suggested I’d do both in the same week. I’d read Joyce.  I’d finish a medium level Soduku and listen to Mozart. 

I sat down to write.  Nothing.  I tried looking in my book of prompts.  I solicited family for suggestions and went on the internet searching for inspiration.  Finally, I had time, I had a computer and I got this:

So you get what I always do when I can’t think of something to write, you get me complaining about my AWOL muse and why Sherry can’t think anymore. 

One reason is simple.  Writing served as a means of self-affirmation while a stay at home mom.  Now that I’m working, the need for affirmation is not as desperate, ergo, the motivation is less.  That’s pathetic and sad really, but it’s also not wrong (much as I might wish otherwise).   On the positive side of that argument, perhaps my ego isn’t as needy.   (Ha!).  I know writers write even when not inspired, even when tired, even when they can’t think of a blasted thing so I’m here, whiffing at my own softball pitches.

Another reason is maternal.  Teenagers, while as amusing and entertaining (and they are), don’t struggle from massive cute disconnects which can be easily exploited for humor purposes.  I don’t want to document adolescence the way I did toddlerhood, because the chaos of teenagerhood is more about figuring out how to help them grow up, and that requires time and space and preferably, not sardonic, sarcastic or even light humor remarks from Mom.  

There are more reasons.  Physically, I know I’ve been running on fumes, both physically and intellectually since around September.  Negotiations with the brain have indicated there isn’t enough caffeine in the universe to make up for the lack of consistent rest, ergo if I want the grey matter to work, I need to invest in more REM time.  Will work on it, especially during Spring Break.

Inspiration. Sometimes, it feels like I’ve told all the jokes I have, and there aren’t any stories that aren’t either repeats of what’s been done, or somehow not what they should be.   I don’t want to force laughter or force humor.  But writing is a lot like fishing, you have to be patient and some days, even if you do everything correctly, you get skunked.   I know. Write anyway. Fish anyway.  Fish until you have no bait left even if they aren’t biting.  Write until you’ve hit 1000 words, even if they don’t sing.

Writing is hard.  Comedy is hard.  Writing comedy is harder than both.   A person who fishes but gets skunked is still a fisherman.  Is a person who writes but comes up with nothing still a writer?  Yes, but like the fisherman, frustrated as all get out.   I don’t want to just write words.  I want to write stories.  I want to somehow evoke a mood (other than boy is Sherry irritated with herself and in need of a diet coke, chocolate bar and a good 3 mile walk, maybe a book, a glass of wine and an early night).  

Back in 2004, I began writing and it seemed, everything would just pour out.  As I look at those early attempts, I wince at my own creations.  They seemed beautiful then, the same way prom pictures and art work and poetry written in adolescence seem meaningful and lovely.   Maturity has a way of rubbing off the glow of those early pieces, because you can see what you could have done, what you should have done, but what those early pieces have that isn’t there now, is fire.  Fire that came from feeling semi-fearless, like I could write anything. 

Somewhere in thirteen years of writing, telling the stories of what happened became something I wouldn’t do, and with that, telling stories became harder.   I lost a piece I’d worked on, with only 356 words to show for it, and I can’t for the life of me remember a word, not even the concept. Discouraged, I wondered, is it gone?  Is it time to just stop.  But that’s always been my problem.  I stop just before things flower, just before things take off, I sabotage myself by not fighting through whatever it is.  So I’m here, banging on the typewriter, blathering about my writers block and hoping somehow to pull out of my head, the practiced habit of writing, to restart with the vigor of knowing, every day there are 1000 stories waiting to be told.  My writing coach holds no sympathy for writing block. "You have ten kids.  Write."

It's a true formula, so I made a timeline.

We ate bacon and bagels, hot cross buns and fresh tomatoes for breakfast and John and Rita served the seven o’clock.  Paul brought me a lily he plucked from the outside and I placed it on the mantle.

 Today my almost ten-year-old reenacted light saber battles with whiffle ball bats.  She and her sisters planned a birthday party and bribed their parents to host a slumber party by cleaning the basement. 

We planted tomatoes and went to a band concert.  My son demanded to quit band because he doesn’t like it.  I offered a bribe.  He agreed with the proviso, I not make him go to Summer Camp. I’m still deciding if I agree to these terms.  At the concert, I met a couple who used to go to Saint Martin’s, they talked about the charism of Fr. Dan, which I agree, is remarkable.  I thought about his gift to bring others to the faith and how he helped me in a hard time.  The kids scored an excellent and I watched and wondered why one conductor refused to smile.

The kids planted Gladiolas, wild flowers, and played with kites in the back yard.   Paul came to me with his communication device and punched in, “Alligator, bee, toad.”  Which meant “I want to watch The Princess and the Frog.”  He’s also typed in “Fish, Jelly, Turtle,” code for “Turn on Finding Nemo.”  That evening, we took Paul and John to see a Capitals Game and Paul held our hands and jumped up the stairs and across crosswalks in downtown DC.  He said “Hockey” and signed to a girl his size, “I like your shoes,” because she wore caps sneakers. We got him a jersey and he wore it to bed, he felt so pleased.  All of this in one day, when I thought, I could think of nothing, because I was thinking what can I write, as opposed to “what happened?”  There isn't always a line connecting everything other than one thing preceded another, but writing out the events of the day allows me to look for ways to connect the events.  What happened?  A lot of life which, if I hadn't written it down, might have been forgotten.

First rule of writing, write.  Second rule of writing, get out of your own way when you’re writing.  Third rule, finish strong. 

Paul's first game, Palm Sunday, and a band concert, it was a good day to remember.   Sitting down to finish this piece after the game, I thought, "They're all good days, even the bad ones." I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.  

Puzzle Pieces

It’s 2017.  Everyone always wants the new year to be so full of promise and potential, but whether the New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, get published or find a job, the reality is, we can dream all we want, it’s what we do that makes the difference between an aspiration and a resolution.  

I aspire to be a writer.  Well. What did I write yesterday?  Nothing!   Not one stupid word!  Why not? 
The brain felt flat.  That’s no excuse if you want to be a writer. Why did you let it stop you?   I don’t know.   The Drill Sergeant in me is no more pleasant than anyone else’s.   She told me to stop and give her 1K.   I told her I didn’t know what to write.  She told me so what?  Make it 2K.  

That’s the difference.  If you want this year’s resolution to be a success, you must resolve to will it.  It’s the same with everything else, but that bottled will isn’t sold in the stores.  I write things down. I make lists.  I set aside time, I read.  I do all the things you’re supposed to do, but it still comes down to being willing to ignore the blank page and write.  

I looked at the word count.  Damn.  Only 220 words, and that includes numbers.   Ugh.  Whatever the damn dam is in my brain, it’s strong.   I ran through my excuses.   I didn’t sleep well.  We’ve been sick.  It was Christmas, I have family visiting.  The Drill Sergeant smirked.  That’s fodder.  You should have had three articles from those experiences.  Sick, insomnia, Christmas with family, those are gold mines of inspiration.  

I’m content.   Oh, does the Drill Sergeant hate that one.  It’s hard to write if you’re relaxed, you’ve got nothing pressing, and there isn’t something just poking you, demanding that you turn it over in your head until you’ve figured it out.   3K!  Three thousand words? Are you kidding me?  I barely made it to 300!  I’ve pulled up all three of my books, I have editing to do.  I need to write and submit three columns this week and I’ve got nothing. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! 

What if there isn’t any more?  What if it’s dried up?  

Drill Sergeant yelled at me.  You went to Rogue One!  You watched Lord of the Rings, you had a heart to heart with a daughter, there’s a super pile of laundry over there and the dishes, do you want to do those instead?  No.   You could be exercising.  The Drill Sergeant lists as many unpleasant tasks as she can imagine to show me that writing isn’t just something I do to create, it’s something I do to avoid as well. 

I think about why I became an English Major, and one of the reasons, was a hurt, and recently, it came to me that I should forgive that hurt, and I did.  However, I didn’t realize until I let go of that hurt, how much of what I write and why I write, was part of trying to prove something or pile up something to bury rather than forgive that hurt.  My brother talked to me about being more vulnerable in my writing. I sat there thinking, I don’t want to be, or rather, I didn’t think I needed to be.   But maybe, that unwillingness was part of the damn, or not wanting to take my brother’s suggestion seriously. (Also a possibility).   I went back to the “I’m content.”  What it meant was, I’d plateaued.  I’d need to work harder. 

Drill Sergeant is pumping her fist.  “You’ve made it to 600.  Push!”  and no more cheapy gimmicks like my pushing the word count, just write Sherry.  Write.  

This year, I resolve to submit a piece to three places each week.  I resolve to finish writing all three books.  I also resolve to return to the rosary, and finish it each day, even if it takes me to the next day.  (Stops to finish yesterday’s rosary).  It is only when I complete the last Hail Mary, that I recognize I did the Glorious mysteries, and wonder if I should have done the Joyful. I remember, that’s today’s job.   My days and nights and weeks are a mess, and tomorrow will be rough.  Tomorrow will be Tuesday, tomorrow they go back to school and the schedule starts back up full throttle.  Will goes back tomorrow.  Mom goes back Thursday.  Bonn goes back Saturday, and Marta, the Saturday after that.  Peter has an S.A.T. in the following week.  I can feel the month charging forward even as I hold onto these last precious still minutes. 

Writing is a luxury. It is also leisure. It is a way I waste time, both with my own company and God and others.  It is a way I spend time.  There are a thousand productive things I could be doing.  I am here spilling words, for the joy of figuring out what the next word will be.   Tomorrow I will do it again for the same reason. 

My daughter comes in the room to ask for help with a math program she’s playing.  She wants me to give her the right answer.  “What’s the question?”  I ask.  When she gives me the parameters, I go to check the program.  She’s misunderstood the problem, and the answer she’s given but won’t give is correct.  Writing works the same way.  It isn’t the need to be more vulnerable, but to keep allowing for vulnerability.  The intimacy of writing is in the moment, not in secrets, but in shared feeling.   Creating a sense in the reader of what I think as I think it and the why of it, allows the reader to run down the rabbit holes with me to discover what I find as I play with these words and turn them over to make a new puzzle each time.  Triumphant music plays on my daughter’s video game as she finishes the section on fractions, and I steal a glance at my word count.  I’m over one thousand and I’ve figured out, all these words, each day, they’re puzzle pieces of the bigger picture.  One day, it will all fit together, or at least make more sense as a composite.   

Okay.....Time to Write!

Man.  There are days I just can't wait to bang out words on the keyboard, and there are days when I look at that computer and can only think, I got nothing.   Today, I'm psyched. I'm energized.  I couldn't wait to get started.

I have...no ideas.

Not one.  Well, I have half formed notions but honestly, they aren't enough and I don't have the story to work around the ideas to make them worth reading or clogging up the internet.   But I've cleaned the house, the laundry is at an ignore-possible state, and I paid the bills yesterday.  I've already chalk colored half the driveway with my daughter.   I drank a diet coke, I've eaten breakfast and taken my vitamin.   There just isn't an excuse.  

But I sat and stared at the blank page and thought...well...what am I going to write about?   I know...

Before I could start, the computer security popped up a detection of malware and my screen rebooted.

No! No! The moment was gone, all the brilliance that I didn't write, is lost lost lost!

So you get...well, you get this...which I promise, would have been internet shatteringly good writing, if only...

The Rule of Thumb

The rule of thumb with exercising is it doesn't matter how you feel, exercise.

The rule of thumb with writing is if you only write when you feel inspired, you aren't a writer, you're a hobbyist who keeps a diary or a journal.  
The rule of thumb with cleaning is don't procrastinate.

So this is an all thumbs day.  

Yesterday, I climbed back onto the exercise wagon, but writing still lagged, so I told myself, today, no matter what, you would be stuck with me for 1000 words.   Normally blog posts are 400 words, 800 if I get going.   You are doomed.   Why? Because I've climbed onto the computer version of a treadmill, set the timer, and I'm not getting off until it's done.  No cheesy clips. No links. No.  I need to get back to writing 1000 words a day, either in Penelope or here, or for submission.  To do that, I need to start.  

How many words is that?  181?  Nuts.  I’ve barely begun and feel winded.  I’ll put on some tunes to keep me going.   Googling “Unwritten.”  (My favorite song to get started with writing).   But I’ve got nothing. I’m staring at this stupid page and crawling for each word. 

Where did my muse go?  Answer, she’s lurking beneath the flab in my brain.  I’ve got to start exercising to tone her into shape, to make her more present.   Sigh. 

AHHHHHHH. I’m “staring at the blank page before me…” Maybe this wasn’t the best choice for a song as background.    Don’t look at the count. You’ll be disappointed.  Don’t look. Too late. I looked. Nuts, I’m only at 292.   Push. Push through the mental pain of having a block.  Write. Damn it Sherry! Write!  

Story.  What story will I tell you today? 

There’s the discovery my kids have a Wikipedia understanding of the world. 

Readers of this blog know my dryer has commitment issues.  Sometimes it works beautifully, other times, it needs more reminders to do its work than my children do to put their laundry away.  I’ve learned to give it smaller loads.  To keep up with our family though, I need more dry than the piece meal approach allows.   Sunday, I opted to string out a line and hang the towels and other things, so as to double our output.
  
My teen thought I’d lost my mind.  “The sun can’t dry those things.” He announced.  His sister agreed.  Pointing out clothes have dried since clothing began via the sun could not dissuade him from his opinion.  Googling proof didn’t help as a fellow blogger, the Frugal Momma, came up as the top post. “Why I no longer line dry my clothes.” Now she wasn’t saying it didn’t work, only that it wasn’t as time efficient as the modern method.  But the headline gave him the proof he needed.  “She doesn’t do it, so you shouldn’t either.”  Pointing out she had a different issue than I did, I wasn’t doing either method exclusively didn’t work.  “Just put them in the car and drive to the laundry place.”  He suggested.

I proposed a race, between the dryer and the sun.  Equal sized loads. Both got two towels.  We’d start them at the same time. The dryer would run until they were dry.  I bet the sun would win even though there were clouds.  “This is stupid.” He said, and told me the race was fine, but his clothes were going to the laundry mat, neither my dryer nor the sun would work.   While not as gripping as the race between the iron horse and the horse drawn carriage, or the tall tale of John Henry vs. the Steam Drill, (My kids have been watching Disney Short films), in this case, I bet against technology.  All I wanted was dry clothes, but now, I had to prove to my son, the capacity of the sun, and my own wisdom despite google headlines to the contrary.  

One cycle through, everything is still damp.  The toy house propping the line blew over from the wind resulting in a scramble to rehang all the laundry.  My son gave me one of those smug “SEE I KNOW BETTER” smiles.   Two cycles through.  Watching me flipping some of the laundry on the line, he gave me a thumbs down.

Some of the stuff in the machine and on the line feel dry to the touch but the rule is it has to all be dry to count, whether the dryer or the sun.   The laundry starts cycle three.   The sun wins. The dryer still needs another cycle for the towels.  My son has put his wet clothes in the car.  He explains, “Don’t put my clothes on the line. In fact, don’t wash my clothes. I’ll do my own laundry.”

It turns out, he doesn’t want me airing his dirty or for that matter, clean laundry.   So in addition to proving that I may actually know something and that the sun can be used to dry clothes, I’ve eliminated a chore for me…at the price of once a week dropping him off at the Wishy Wash place.  Is there a downside to this?  I’m thinking no.  

In fact, upon consideration, I’m wondering if I did the dishes outside in public view, if I could get out of kitchen detail as well.  Maybe if we made the home transparent, I could get the kids to clean.  

Am I done yet? 

905 words.   

Last push, cool down part of the exercise…before I have to also go and exercise. 
The music is back.  The procrastination is back.  I registered two girls for Girls on the Run, answered emails, watched an excellent video on Syrian crisis and moved the laundry along before recognizing, I was opting to do chores rather than write. SIT BACK DOWN.  Finish the damn thing.   971.  Man I’m out of practice.   Thanks for bearing with me  in this exercise, I hope you’ll come back tomorrow as I try to have my blog become the equivalent of my mental treadmill/trail run.  

Go. 

Exercise. 

Write. 

Pray.

Persevere.

And a big "Thumb's up" for persisting. 

The Nutty Brain of a Writer

We like to think we're full of nougats of truth, but in all honesty, we're mostly nuts.  I can say that because today, I got up at 5:30. I woke two teens, cleaned out a bathroom, then made 8 lunches, then launched the 2 teens. Then I got up the tween, got myself showered and dressed, helped her and her father get going, and woke up the remaining five.  After making breakfast, unloading the dishwasher, reloading, double checking backpacks and signing forms, I read them a story, brushed two kiddos hair, made sure they brushed their teeth and we walked to the bus stop.  Dropping off the first three after singing songs while waiting, I brought the toddler and the five year old back to the house to wait for the second bus.  

Once he'd left to go to school, my 3 year old and I walked back inside and patrolled the house, making beds, emptying trash, turning off lights.  I started the laundry and did five loads this morning.  Next, I tackled the paperwork leftover from last week.  Then Anna and I worked on the basement (okay, she played) and I put away folded clothes. Then we practiced dancing to music and playing the piano. After lunch, we made homemade cookies complete with frosting.  Finishing up the dishes I sighed. 

Dinner sat cooking in the crockpot.  The day felt like a wash, a failure.  Why? 

Because I hadn't updated my blog and had zero ideas. I'd attempted four different pieces but none of them sung to me, none of them felt new.

Like I said.  The chocolate coated nougat of truth is I'm mostly nuts.   But at least we have cookies today. 

Foot Notes

My mom and dad came to visit last week and we talked systems. We brainstormed over how I could minimize the chaos and the clutter and the difficulties of getting six people launched in the morning with lunch.

The upshot of that discussion; six pairs of shoes are currently safely tucked in the shoe closet; kids have laid out their clothes for tomorrow, including mated socks! Banana bread and blueberry muffins have been made in advance of breakfast. The sink is empty, the dryer is finishing the last load and the refrigerator is stocked with the snacks and meals for the week.

It's ten-thirty p.m. I have nothing to do. I can write! Hot diggities.

Except, without the element of chaos from which to draw inspiration, I got nothing. The basement is in nominal shape. Coats are hung up. My five year old took on folding the towels and his bathroom is completely tidy. He's offered kindly to do mine. My daughter changed the sheets this weekend. My oldest did the dishes. Try as I might, there isn't a vignette to craft, a bon mot to share or a grouse I can nurse into a story. I'm stuck with the curse of a clean house and an empty mind.

Naturally, I turned to my beloved spouse who had aided in the clean up for the day by folding while watching the playoffs.
"I need your help." I started.
"Sher, I thought you were writing..."

"I can't. It's the moment every writer dreads. They look at the blank page. The blank page looks back and there is no love. Help!"

"When you can't fall asleep, giving me a rub always makes you yawn. So maybe, if you gave me a foot rub, you'd think of things to write."

"This is a con to get a rub."
"Yes it is; but it might work, it does for insomnia."

I went back to the page. The page was still dull as could be. I had the gift of time, but it seems the need to procrastinate was another source of inspiration. My husband helpfully presented his ankles for a good crunching.

The things I do for my art.