Sometimes my fingers fly and still can’t keep up with the words pouring out of my head across the screen. Literally, the characters dance ahead of me across the lines, turning, stopping, taunting, tongue out and thumbs in ears with fingers waggling, the little scoundrels.
Other times, my fingers hover uneasily, waiting for divine inspiration, guilty with inactivity, searching for something to deliver if not to the screen then to my stomach in compensation. Maybe if we feed the muse, she will deliver unto us again?
She doesn’t, but my butt grows bigger in my cushy black office chair, the one I bought at a yard sale for $25, and the most comfortable chair I’ve ever owned. But I digress. A bigger butt? Not the desired outcome.
In May, I wrote 70,000 words. In mid-July, I submitted a completed novel based on those words to my editor. It is now finished, it is beautiful, it is the best thing I’ve ever written.
“Holy crap,” I thought. “I’ve figured this writing thing out. I can DO this.”
I sat down again in mid-July. I flexed my fingers. I wiggled them, waggled them. I placed them on the keys.
Nothing.
I adjusted my position in my seat. A few pages of wooden, colorless gibberish spurt out like literary baby poo.
I ate some slutty brownies. I repositioned my tush in its throne, the seat a bit tighter now, but for a good cause. I ground through 20,000 words of garbage over three weeks. I cried. I cried some more. I bought new running shoes. I went out to run and came back inside. I was too fat to run in 100 degrees.
What.The.Hell??
It’s August 15th as I type this post. My rough manuscript is due September 1st. At least, it was. I begged for an extension. Now I have until September 10th. Meanwhile, real life caught up with me, ate up my window of writing opportunity. A visit from the MIL for a few weeks. Kids home for the summer. The day job rearing its ugly head after a blessed break.
All of this overtook me and left me high and dry, until I thought I left my laptop cord at my parents’ house. Now, it turns out I didn’t actually leave it there. Hold that thought. But the belief that it was missing was critical. Because I bought a new laptop six weeks ago.
To read the rest of “Fickle is the Muse,” CLICK HERE, which will take you to the original post on Pamela Fagan Hutchins’ blog, Road to Joy.