Small Bites: Friends
Feb 11th, 2009 by Marilyn
On our way home from the airport Saturday night, Greg and I stopped for a late dinner out, somewhere with dim lighting and salty breadboards. Flush with being sprung from Vegas, it took just one glass of Chianti and some paper-thin prosciutto to relax, and the place was hopping. I spotted some friends a few tables down, and jumped over to greet the couple, wine in hand. Ooh…so nice to see you guys!
You’re back from Vegas, she laughed.
How did you know we were there? We hadn’t seen them lately.
Oh, I saw it on the blog.
You read the blog? Grinning, me and the Chianti leaned over. Jeez, I’m so happy to know you’re reading!
She put a hand on my arm. I scan it.
My friend Peter called one morning last week, and we caught up, talked about dinners, writing, current goings-on. I confessed I’d been procrastinating, and not any regular putting-off, either, but a lethal strain of not-now that includes mentally burying evidence of things I need to do. I’m afraid I’m stuck, I said. I think I’m stuck.
“What can I do to help you?” he said.
“What?”
“I said, what can I do. To – help – you. Today.”
“That is the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.”
“Clearly, you haven’t had much of a day. What can I do?”
Wow.
“You can give me something.”
“What,” he said, “chocolate chips? Brownies?”
“Give me a deadline.”
“What?”
“Give me a deadline. I…need to finish things. Writing things, house things, life things. My own deadlines don’t work.”
“What do you mean, don’t work?”
“They…expire. I make new ones.”
Silence, then two sips of coffee. My old penguin mug, chipped.
“Okay,” he said. “You’ve got three weeks.”
“Three weeks for what?”
“To finish whatever you started.”
I put down the penguin.
“Deal. And thank you.”
“For what?”
“The kick. Exactly right.”
Pulling on my gray pea coat, I’m ready to leave the coffee shop but I pause to chat with a friend, a successful writer.
Jen has wavy brown hair that she pushes back once before disappearing into her novels and non-fiction – quiet and unaware, she gives off no bothersome hum. She likes to sit in the front window nursing a latte, peering at stacked manuscripts, glasses down her nose and pen in hand. I’ve told her many times how I envy her lack of laptop, that I can’t even write longhand anymore, that surely real ink fosters creative prose. She’s prolific in a way I’m not and appears to use her time wisely, far away in good writing, meaningful work.
Three days ago, she told me her secret: “Stare out the window for an hour. Then write for five minutes.”
I knew it!
Hooray for getting un-stuck! This happens to us all sometimes, I think. Well…maybe not to my 81-year-old mother, who not only doesn’t stop but never seems to slow down…But to the rest of us, it happens. The silver lining in the cloud of stuck is that when you get un-stuck, it all comes pouring down: creativity, productivity, organization, all of it. Hooray!
I have recently resorted to another binge at Staple’s, for my fourth whiteboard. Putting each to-do list, one per each slice of my life, in its own place in black (or green or red or blue marker) and white helps me find my way into action on one of the things, instead of sitting frantic yet paralyzed at the seeming enormity of two blogs and a book deadline. The fourth board is for the “rest” of my life…but uh-oh, sometimes I forget to put things on that one. Working on it. Times four.
We’re really grateful that you have acquired another card in your hand to lay down when stuck. Particularly since anyone who can characterize a person as someone who “gives off no bothersome hum,” should be feed up to write more—so we can read it. Lovely job.
Stuck is not complicated, merely highly romanticized. In writing, stuck is simply not knowing what to write next, and in the great rock-scissors-paper of writing, research always wins. Getting unstuck can be as simple as calling your sister and asking the name of the childhood neighbor’s dog, looking in the family photo album or, as your pen-in-hand colleague suggests, staring out the window and gathering data.
Don’t be stuck. Write on.
I love it when writers pull the curtain back and give us a glimpse of the creative process. I’m in the longhand camp. I have notebooks and notebooks filled with scribbles. With blogging I’ve been doing more writing at the keyboard, but my best writing is usually a result of writing longhand and revision, revision, revision.
Like your friend, I also do a lot of time staring out a window while a cradle the warmth of a coffee mug. In our culture, I don’t think most people set aside enough time to just think. We often misinterpret action as productivity.
I want to thank the Roach sisters for posting such great advice. I enjoyed reading their comments.
I’m grateful each time I get to read Simmer Till Done. It’s a source of inspiration, and a little corner of the blogosphere where words matter.
Thanks, Jayne and Mike – two of the finest listeners I know.
Welcome, Margaret and Marion, and thanks for your kind words – what a pleasure to have your sister act in the house.
Three weeks. Now, “up up” with you.
Here is the solution that works best for me when I feel like I’m not accomplishing enough: Add a couple more items to the list. It seems to me, quite paradoxically, that the busier I am, the more efficient I am.
Then again, I believe efficiency is overrated. I remember working on an extensive writing project years ago and I was concerned that I was not producing quickly enough. My boss told me that he spends weeks thinking about what he’s going to write before he actually starts writing. Now, I allow myself as much time as I need. When you think about it, all of the words we have loved came forth at just the right moment. A moment sooner or later, and they would likely have been different – flat, awkward… better? Who knows!
While it’s terrifically efficient to write/work on schedule or demand, I know that’s not always the case. Hence, a good friend to give you a much-needed kick in the pants can be an indispensable godsend.
I was in a rut of similar proportions after my father passed. Such a rut, in fact, that I enrolled in a humor writing course on a whim, just to change it up a bit. I know. Wild, huh? But what simple thing I learned from that course has changed my approach to writing and working whenever I need a helpful kick. People watching, a wee bit of eavesdropping, brief conversations with strangers in the grocery—all bring marvelous opportunities to see the world through renewed and inspired eyes.
Don’t hesitate to break out of your comfort zone, even in ordinary ways, whenever you’re having trouble getting things done. Whether it’s 5 minutes or 5 hours, the affect is palpable.
I love this,just love it,but no fair bringing up the bread board again:)!
Loved these short, friendly vignettes. If I’m very quiet and staring out the window, I can just hear the faint splish-splash of your creative juices flowing.
I have been “stuck” since January. Today, I finally decided that it was just the way it is supposed to be. I will be ready to write when I’m ready to write. Thank goodness we all don’t get stuck at the same time. Until I’m ready to write, I shall read all the delicious words you and a few others write on your blogs. Thank you. I shall return to the wordless kitchen for the time being. N