I never really have writer’s block (yes, I just stopped to knock on wood).
It’s not that I can’t find words, or I don’t have ideas. There are times I will work my characters into a corner and they will turn, look at me, and say, “What now, genius?”, but for the most part I slowly back us out and things start to flow again.
The issue I have is being in the world of my book, then having to leave, and then getting back in, about a dozen times a day. It drives me nuts. I want to go to my world and stay there until the story is rich and blooming and finished. I don’t want interruptions, I don’t want to have to stop and remember that I’m Tracy and it’s past time to shower. If I’m on the roof of The Saint Regis Hotel in San Francisco during cocktail hour watching a bursting sunset, I don’t care if it’s time for dinner or my youngest needs to talk.
I don’t want to leave.
More importantly, after dinner is over, after I’ve refereed my children in the great debate of who’s turn it is to do dishes, I have a really hard time getting back to clinking champagne glasses. My mind needs to sit for a minute, leave behind the laundry and find it’s way back to the world of my book.
Super challenging and probably the most misunderstood part of being a writer. If one more person says, “Well, that should give you about an hour of writing time,” I will scream. An hour…sometimes it takes me an hour just to leave my “real” life behind, find a blank canvas.
Last night, right when Kate was about to finally buy a couch, after over two years of divorce and living in boxes, she was trusting, settling, and making the leap to a couch, Jack barked to go out and then someone came in my office and asked if I was going to bake pumpkin cookies tonight.
By the time I was finished loving up Jack and explaining that baking was not my priority right now, Kate was sitting on her kitchen counter, doubting again. She was telling me this whole story was ridiculous and really, how could she have gone two years without a couch. It took me well over an hour to get her back to the furniture store.
I know there are writers, established writers, that don’t have other jobs or distractions. They check themselves into an office or a luxury hotel, light a candle, and write.
Sigh…that sounds like heaven today.
My thoughts from the laundry room. Close My Door.
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