Write crazy...edit crazier.

     A few sips of coffee in the a.m. and writing. 

     Geez, does anyone make any caffeinated sense at that hour? I know it took me two minutes to type these few lines. My radius, ulna, and phalanges will feel boneless until halfway through my second cup. (And don’t be impressed that I knew the proper names for the innards of my arm and fingers; I picked those up from episodes of BONES)

     I’m probably the worst writer in the morning, though other writers have told me that those brain-dead moments in the morning can be the most productive; your brain’s not exactly sieve-like, and you never know what you’ll come up with unless you just do it.

     Personally, the only thing that comes to mind is Hemingway’s quote, “Write drunk, edit sober.” 

     But even with the brunch hour fog I’m attempting to keyboard through, I’ve always kept in mind the collective advice of my writing class professors; just write. Write and write and write…and edit later. 

     So I write. Whether or not it makes any sense. I don’t just want to do it. I need to do it.

In 'Letters to a Young Poet,' Rainer Maria Rilke had been asked advice by a novice writer. Rilke wrote back the young bard that, though he was flattered, his advice would be futile:

“There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”

     Um…well, unlike a journalist who covers a Middle Eastern uprising fraught with peril, I’ve never felt the need to risk my life for my writing—short of writing a memoir. 

     I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve lived in a country where I can write any old thing I like and publish it within a blog without threat of Infidelism. (And being the Gemini writer that I am, I took a moment to verify that was even a word. I’ve looked up eight websites, and so far, they can only tell me how many syllables are used)

     There are days where I do need a good prompt. The ‘dictionary-flip-word-prompt’ I practice is when I’m especially grasping to write but have no clue what to write. Other times I fall back on writing or editing my woefully unfinished manuscripts. Does that make me the ‘tortured artist’? No idea, really. But it’s fun to be thought of as an ‘eccentric writer’. 

     I think even the word ‘eccentric’ is widely known as allowing any number of idiosyncrasies some of us just can’t help. My colleagues have had a chuckle or a head-shake over mine:

* Consuming only cold-n-crisp veggies, as I find steamed to be nauseating.

* Liking the color purple but refusing to wear it.

* Clipping Sunday newspaper coupons for things I’m so sure I’ll buy, but never do.

* Rum-n-Coke? Try Rum-n-Dr. Pepper. 

* Only being able to sleep for five hours at a time.

* Typing, and printing my Last Will & Statements, three hours before going into surgery.

* Reading the first one-hundred pages of a great book, but putting it down, close by, and not managing to finish it.

* Keeping four flash-drives that all hold the same information, because I’m paranoid about loss, destruction, or accidentally-deleted files…what writer doesn’t dread that?

     Personally, I think our eccentricities keep us interesting beings. Artists, musicians, photographers, writers…we’re all adventure-seekers in our own oddball way. Typing my way through a rainy Oregon morning, consuming my second cup of coffee…is that eccentric? Is it eccentric to have completely changed the theme of this post halfway through? 

     I’m not sure, but maybe I should reverse Hemingway’s advice: write sober, edit drunk. 

'Law & Order' spoiled me.

Work slows, and you try to look busy. I’m in a ‘hurry-up-n-wait’ moment. “Hurry up and wait,” a judge in Pascagoula once told a room full of potential jurors. I was one of them. Anyone needing to justify getting out of jury-duty approached the bench; small business-owners, work-from-home-moms, their toddlers as their props, dressed in their most adorable Baby Gap. The cuter they were, the better their chances Mommy would get to stay home, on the phone, staring at the computer-screen, talking important words to another adult, reassuring words of business-promises kept.

I have no toddler. I’m indifferent to toddlers. I don’t really care about jury-duty either. I get yanked for jury-duty. $25.00 a day. I listen to lawyers present their case. But they’re not interesting. T.V. lawyers are interesting. Real lawyers aren’t. They talk to the jury box like they’re dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s. They ask questions, judging if they want you deciding their client’s fate. ‘Am I invested in seeing their client found guilty/innocent, responsible/not responsible, dangerous/not dangerous’, etc.

The endless voir dire session starts to make me slump in my seat. Fatigued, bored, eye-lids start getting heavy. And the attorney’s only on the third potential juror. I wish the judge would allow me to read a book until the lawyer gets to me. I’m not invested in listening to a potential juror tell the lawyer if he was satisfied with a car insurance company’s outcome about a fender-bender that segued into back problems, hospital visits, loss of employment. The surly-faced, elderly woman in the wheelchair at the plaintiff lawyer’s table is quiet, sitting next to her husband, and listening to the defendant’s lawyer drone on and on.

Two days later I call the 228 number to find out I’ll no longer be needed as a juror; the case of the fender-bender settled to the plaintiff.

This wasn’t worth $25.00 a day.

Opening that vein.

Write. Write free-write. Ideas come. Eventually. Even stories that halt and get stuck. Like elevators. And stories about elevators. You get stuck. Get unstuck, or you’ll be stuck writing in the back of a steno-pad about how stuck you feel about your writing. Write to breathe. Write about anything. Breathe. Write. Itch your brain, even if it doesn’t make sense in the moment. There’s no joy unless you feel the pen in your hand and watch the ink flow onto paper as you breathe writing. Writing is life. You want to live. 
Coffee! I smell coffee. What a glorious scent. Even when you don’t want to consume it, at that moment. Because you’ll need to sleep, eventually. Don't get distracted. Work, write, coffee, sleep, type, write, think. Breathe! Write. This makes no sense, and yet you don’t care. You must write the way you must breathe.

Yop...that's 'Elephont'...

English English or American English?

     I never really know what I'm going to write, when I write. I think I do better when I have a black-ink Bic pen in hand, and a composition book open before me. Then I can't make my hand stop. I write whatever comes to mind. Very 'butter-coming-from-my-pen' feel. 

     I think I must have over a dozen of those marble-speckled composition books by now. I'd use them for school, but also as a journal. So, essentially, my journal entries (or diary musings) are all mixed together with notes from writing class peer-reviews, academic lectures, and French conjugations. I never mean for that to happen, but it just does. My family will be in for a surprise one day, should I leave this earthly plain too soon, and they have to go through my stuff.

     I know what my folk’s stance would be on that; my Mah wouldn't have wanted to violate my privacy, despite the fact she would’ve been curious what I wrote about. I know I wouldn't be positioned to care, so I’d’ve thought, 'Go for it, Mah.'
     But, as saddening as it is, she was meant to go first. And, likely in a realm to already know everything. The long-held question about the Loch Ness Monster would’ve been answered, along with sharing a glass of Scotch whiskey with her fifth-great-uncle, Robert ‘Rabbie’ Burns.

     My Da, on the other hand, would likely stack the journals on his desk. Then he'd pile office papers on top of them, forgetting them for a time. Once he was through 'being busy' from not being able to sit still, he'd start reading them, because he can be a nosey-parker.  

     I'd like to hope that my flash-drives, full of other writings, would be safe. I'll have to be sure to put in a Last Will & Testament that they won't be TOUCHED by Da's friend, D.W. (the same guy that wiped out the pricey MS Word program I paid for on my folk's computer. Knowing him, he'd likely wipe away—accidently, I think—any record of my manuscript. So, I'm gonna need to find a geek I can trust.)

     Maybe I'll bequeath my flash-drives to my Bestie, Mai-Tai. She's been my soul-sister-writer, morbid-humor confederate, and tech-advisor of all that is British. She's kept me from writing like I don't know my ass-from-my-elbow. We've known one another nearly 20 years; shared emails, snail-mails, phone-chats that went on for hours, and I'm honored to be able to call her kids my 'adopted' nieces and nephews. And, like one of my heroines, writer Helene Hanff, I've never had the opportunity to actually meet my Brit-bestie.

     England once held only as much meaning to me as the 80’s pop-bands that came from it. Later, it became the place to want to go, merely out of interest. But for some time now, it's held dear friends that I likely won't see for many years, yet. (Affording a trip across the pond can only be had via a winning lottery ticket, or a stock-broker willing to divulge great investing info) When William and Kate married, I'd searched through the storage unit (that is my disgusting garage) for my Union Jack flag, and posted it proudly in their honor, and mine, (I’m 1/8^th English) despite the fact that my Britstie isn't exactly a Royalist.  She said she doesn't understand the Yanks fascination with the Royals. I told her it's because we have no royalty here, though, many feel the closest we've got are the Kennedys.

     (But even on Prince Harry's worst day, he's behaved better than most Kennedys!)