Get Up From the Desk
Sometimes the writing doesn't happen when you are sitting down
Before I actually became a writer, I had an idea about how the work happened.
I’d sit at my desk, researching, and then I’d create these fantastic stories. The words would flow through me and at the end of a writing day I’d feel so, satisfied. Relaxed. Ready to go again.
That is a myth, of course. Never how it happens.
Today, I wrote, well, this. This column is what I wrote.
I did watch bunnies-eating-strawberries videos, though, so the day wasn’t a total wash.
In the time I had designated to write, it all went to shit. I had tech issues, got interrupted by an important text from my Mom, the senior dog did senior dog things and my mind never settled into the groove. I sat there anyhow and did some bad writing.
Walk Away
Then I got up and walked away from the desk. Because sometimes that’s how the writing happens too. I stretched, washed dishes, read a magazine that I’d like to write for and my brain began to unwind and go to work on the writing.
Without conscious thought, an idea for the next Simply Write podcast hovered over me. I pulled out a notebook. Wrote it down. Then, a structural issue I’d been wrangling in the novel, magically resolved. I wrote that down too.
And the writing got done.
Just not while I was sitting in front of the computer today.
It got done while I was stretching and reading and washing dishes. When you’ve got to tackle the mundane, put your subconscious to work. A lot can get done while we scrub or shower or walk or vacuum.
Other published writers know this too. Donald Altman who is a guest on this week’s Simply Write podcast and who has written more than 20 nonfiction books, a short film, children’s television, and now a novel, Travelers said there were many times with his fiction work that he needed to move away, do something else at times, let the story emerge organically.
Not always, but sometimes, the best writing happens when you get up from the desk.
Today I got the writing done after all, and this time the dishes were washed too.
Simply Write,
-p
