Blogcation

“Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life.” ~ Lawrence Kasdan

I am headed to Costa Rica and will be away until mid-April. Although I am looking forward to my vacation, travel tends to stimulate my writing center. I end up with a list of things to write, which distracts me from relaxing. Does a writer ever really get a true vacation? Is it possible to see the world without thinking about how to write about it?

Perspective

"Without words, without writing and without books, there would be no history, there would be no humanity."  ~ Hermann Hesse

I loved the fact that Julie Powell blogged herself to fame in Julie and Julia (okay, so she had to cook too, and that was even harder than blogging).  However, sometimes her blog was whiny and self-absorbed, so when I started my blog, I vowed to remain chaste and shrill-free. It’s too late, the “poor-me” cries are taking over, and inserting themselves like hyphens in my blog.

It started with the endless power failure, followed by a trip to Albuquerque to move my daughter. On the day of the move, we hit some unexpected snags that if I even begin to describe them, I am afraid I will get lost in the Blogmuda Triangle. Upon returning home, the damage from the snow storm (not a metaphorical one, but the one that caused the power failure) had left us with a huge plumbing problem. Today I helped my husband bleed the hot water tank, clear the sediment out of the washing machine, and fix 2 toilets.

In the middle of it all, I managed to write, and despite my complaining, I enjoyed the daffodils and crocus that didn’t seem to notice that there is still a bit of snow on the ground. I suppose if the flowers can bloom in the midst of this weather, I can put a few words on paper. And if I ever really lose my perspective, I can turn on the news, and weep over the tragic earthquake in Japan, and then be grateful that I just went through a little snowstorm.

Writing Chasms

"The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes." ~ Agatha Christie

This week I have had to manage a series of writing obstacles that made me relate to Sylvia Plath. Perhaps I am exaggerating just a tiny bit. Four days of no electricity or Internet created a serious disruption in my schedule. Now I am in San Diego at a conference, which is cutting into my writing time. I heard a wonderfully inspiring talk about a woman who self-published a book which was picked up by a major publisher. It made me want to write even more, but I haven’t had time to read her book let alone write mine.

Sometimes the chasms between where I am and where I want to be seem so deep that I doubt my capacity to navigate them. That’s when I find I can jump farther and higher than I realized.