A thought finally emerges. I type it out before I lose it. It’s terrible. Delete. I type again. Nope—God awful—delete again. Trite, dull, cliché. I check the thesaurus for better descriptions of how I feel about my writing lately: stale, threadbare, dime-store, cornball. Yup—they all pretty much sum it up. If I do manage to write a decent sentence, I’ve probably already said it—and most likely more than once.
My phone dings. Sweet relief. Someone is texting me asking about piano lessons. YES! I can distract myself for another few minutes. I exchange pleasantries with a former student who now wants her five-year old to start lessons. I’ve finally reached the point in my career where I’ve become the musical grandmother to the children of my past students. I email her my studio policy information, which takes less than three minutes. Back to it, Jess!
I arrange the huge pillow desk I’ve recently purchased on Amazon so I can sit comfortably on my couch and write. I told myself that I wasn’t writing because I wasn’t comfortable sitting at my desk, and if I’m not careful, my sciatica will flare up again. This special $60 pillow was just the thing I needed to get back to being consistent with my writing. And it must be working because I’m currently writing this post. But now my back is starting to hurt. It must be the damn couch—it’s so uncomfortable—and ugly, too. I should probably buy a new couch. If I had a better couch, I’m sure I’d write more frequently.
For another distraction I check Amazon for any new reviews on my novel. Someone has left me a three-star review—which is not even a bad rating, really. I’ll take a three-star over a one-star anytime. This person writes: “Didn’t like the story. But shipping of book was good.” I mean, who writes that? They don’t recommend the book, but if you’re going to buy it, you will really enjoy the shipping part! If I read a book I don’t care for, I never intentionally give the author a bad review—I just don’t recommend that book to anyone. It’s already a given that authors are chock full of self-doubt and insecurity, not to mention constantly beating themselves up over their work—why twist the knife?
I check the time. It’s still early enough to get to the nursery to buy flowers to plant this weekend. If I go now, there still might be some good stuff left. Noooo! There’s no room left to plant anything anyway. But then again, I did just recently become a member of the local botanical garden, which gives me a five percent discount on all plant purchases. I’ll just go look to see if they have anything new. Jess, stop it right now.
What should I have for lunch today? There’s leftover homemade albóndigas soup in the fridge but I ate two heaping bowls for lunch and dinner yesterday and should probably make a salad. Or maybe I’ll order something on Door Dash. No, wait—way too expensive. Luckily, my husband just called and wants to go out to dinner tonight. Now I’ve got to figure out a restaurant and make a reservation because he’s “working.” Bless his heart. That should kill at least another 10 to fifteen minutes.
Or maybe I’ll just finish this blog post and then actually get back to work on my shitty first draft of my second novel. The writing will no undoubtedly sound vapid and predictable, but at least there will be something, and a start is better than nothing. I can always fix it later.
And in a year or two it will turn out to be good enough so that the person who buys it will not only enjoy the shipping experience, but maybe the book as well.
Or skip the whole shipping part and visit your local Indy bookstore. Their shipping is really good.