Tear Down The Wall…
I’m trying to title a diary entry without ellipses one of these days… not sure if I can do it.
So, tonight is one of those sucky nights. I come home, geared up to write, watch the news while eating dinner… and then wake up after having fallen asleep. But now I’m in the zone of should I just write, or am I still able to go to bed in an hour. Then again, what good is keeping up “the schedule” if I’m napping during the writing time?
I really need to go kamikaze and start writing my book like I’m a college student and not a law professor. Write at all hours, go to the gym when it fits into the schedule, and maybe live through a day at work without 8 hours sleep. It can’t be that awful. I mean, it’s kind boring and drawn out as it is, maybe being half in the bag will be an improvement?
As much as I know this schedule works, I think it is too constrictive. If I am writing, and I look to my right and see 9:20, something in the back of my head says, “Hmm, better wrap it up soon…” and I hate that.
Because, working on my novel is the best part of my day. I hate the gym. I hate work. I hate watching everything I eat so I can lose more weight. The only zenned out time each day is when I get lost in the novel.
I know I’ve said it before, but I can tell that people aren’t sold on this. There is a disconnect between my words and my actions. The problem is the only time I discuss or even write about writing my novel, I’m not doing it. There is no overlap. If I’m writing this diary, I’m not working on my novel. If I’m writing corporate nonsense for “The Man,” I’m not working on my novel. Any time I am in contact with any other human being, I’m not working on my novel.
But to keep up this “schedule” and organizing my life to ensure this window to work on the novel exists, frankly, sucks. I don’t like one bit of it. So, when people ask me how the book is going (to which I will always respond “good,” with no further elaboration, in case anyone wants to just play that conversation out in their head without my direct involvement), my thoughts go to what i have to do that day to ensure this three hour window of time is opened up so that I can write. Do i need to cook lunch and dinner at the same time, since I won’t have time to make a lunch for work after the writing. Do I have to run a quick errand before I can get home and settle in? Did I commit myself to something to wedge in before the writing, which will potentially run long, and put me in that place of wondering whether to write or bag the night as a free day?
All of that is what goes through my head when people ask about the writing, or I talk about the writing. So, I always seem slightly perturbed by the notion of having to write the book. But, I think I’ve explained in this diary before (although i wouldn’t know since I don’t actually read this diary, I just write it) that my disaffected, resigned tone is about everything else. The writing, when everything else is off the table, and I am here and inside the book, and nothing else exists. It is total, blissed out fun.
That doesn’t happen every night. Some nights it is work, and I bang through it because that is what you need to do. But the nights where you find that bliss (or that yellow, I suppose, if you read trippy Rosie O’Donnel editorials in The Advocate), it just rocks, and there’s no place you’d rather be.
So, you know what?
I’m done writing this diary for the night.
And I’m done keeping a schedule like an old lady.
I am going to post this entry. Shut down all my applications, and just work on the book, until 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, who knows (safe bet is on 12).
I will set my alarm to go to the gym in the morning, and if I’m too tired, I will roll it back and workout after work, and then I will just write until whenever again.
And since only one clock is in my field of vision when I’m writing, i think it’s time to find that roll of black tape and silence this bitchy LED prison I’ve concocted.
It’s time to stop putting all my energy into making sure I’m at my best for the part of my day that is, typically, the least important chunk for me, since it is not about reducing my body or building my novel.
Jeff
(Postscript: For those of you betting at home, the correct answer was, indeed, 12. Eight new pages in a littleover two hours. Cool. Now let’s see if the gym thing pans out on six hours sleep instead of eight.)
